Your Old Smartphones Are More Valuable Than You Think

Outdated or damaged, tens of thousands of smartphones are discarded by people every year, but how will they be handled after being discarded? In addition, you might be surprised that even though your old smartphones are not working, it is still more valuable than you think. 

Smartphones contain a variety of recyclable materials. The amount of gold and silver hidden, the rare earth metals, or the metal contained in the discarded smartphones account for a significant amount, equivalent to 1/3 of the materials that phone companies have to use every year.

For example, an iPhone contains about 0.034 g of gold, 0.34 g of silver, 0.015 g of palladium, nearly 1 / 1,000 g of platinum and a few other common metals such as aluminum (25 g) and copper ( 15 g). Not to mention plastic, glass and some rare earth metals such as yttrium, lanthanum, terbium, neodymium, gadolinium, and praseodymium.

With 1 million old iPhones being recovered and recycled, we will collect up to 16 tons of copper, 350 kgs of silver, 34 kgs of gold and 15 kgs of palladium, which is a really significant number.

Besides, the content of gold and silver contained in smartphones is much higher than raw ore. According to calculations, a ton of iPhone devices would give 300 times more gold than one ton of gold ore and 6.5 times more silver than one ton of silver ore.

Therefore, recycling and taking advantage of smartphone waste are inevitable that every organization should think of. There are usually different ways to handle this valuable e-waste. 

Firstly, smartphone companies directly collect damaged items from consumers. They set up their own high-tech, environmentally friendly recycling plants to recycle the material. On the other hand, companies refurbish phones that aren't badly damaged, put them into collections and resell them to customers in need.

The second way is to treat them as mixed waste. Old smartphones are gathered in waste sorting and disposal areas in bulk. Here, they are burned directly just like other types of waste.

The third way, smartphone waste will be collected informally by third-party organizations before being transported to developing countries. 

The truth about the recycling process

There are common ways to recycle smartphone waste, but nearly 80% of the waste is treated in the third way, collected and sold to developing countries. Why is that?

In theory, smartphone manufacturers are eager to recover some of the raw material to reuse for the manufacture of their new products. However, in order to set up a recycling plant, they need to put a massive amount of investments and it will also require high technologies.

Workers working in these factories must accept hazardous working conditions during the incineration process. Workers in developed countries often attach great importance to health and environmental pollution. Or if they agreed to accept a job, they would also require a very high salary to compensate for the health damage.

On the other hand, the way of treating them as mixed waste is a waste of resources inside old smartphones. For these reasons, companies will opt for an informal way of collecting and selling electronic waste to developing countries, leaving low-cost labor in those countries recycled and acquiring valuable materials 

In terms of financial benefits, all parties benefit in this way. However, environmental pollution and many serious human consequences are affecting the countries that receive the e-waste.