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Businesses Earth Technology

E-Waste Mining Could Be Big Business (bbc.com) 112

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Professor Veena Sahajwalla's mine in Australia produces gold, silver and copper -- and there isn't a pick-axe in sight. Her "urban mine" at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is extracting these materials not from rock, but from electronic gadgets. The Sydney-based expert in materials science reckons her operation will become efficient enough to be making a profit within a couple of years. "Economic modeling shows the cost of around $500,000 Australian dollars for a micro-factory pays off in two to three years, and can generate revenue and create jobs," she says. "That means there are environmental, social and economic benefits." In fact, research indicates that such facilities can actually be far more profitable than traditional mining.

According to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, a typical cathode-ray tube TV contains about 450g of copper and 227g of aluminum, as well as around 5.6g of gold. While a gold mine can generate five or six grammes of the metal per tonne of raw material, that figure rises to as much as 350g per tonne when the source is discarded electronics. The figures emerged in a joint study from Beijing's Tsinghua University and Macquarie University, in Sydney, where academics examined data from eight recycling companies in China to work out the cost for extracting these metals from electronic waste.

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E-Waste Mining Could Be Big Business

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    CRTs tend to contain some really nasty stuff, including lead, barium, and various kinds of phosphor coating.

    Since the recycling industry is vastly a "you break it, you deal with it" kind of deal, those chemicals need to be reclaimed somehow and disposed of. That process will eat into your potential profits like crazy. Of course, the article mentions China so I doubt they're doing anything of the sort (and just dumping that shit into the environment), which is probably one of the reasons why they're able to

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06, 2018 @10:46PM (#56905400)

      Actually, gold mines have horrendous byproducts due to the post processing of mined material. That says nothing about the effects of dredging streams, honeycombing mountains for veins, etc.

    • What? Fucktons of horrible byproducts get generated depending upon the method of extraction and refining of gold. Ever hear of mercury amalgamation or cyanide leaching? Nitric acid processing? Do you even mine and extract gold? I do, but only as a by-product of hunting down gemstone material. If it's not in native form and large enough to bother with without the need for chemical (excepting dihydrogen monoxide) or fire to extract, I'm on it, but otherwise some other fool can have fun with the tailings and poisoning the environment.

      • Naturally you are using low-tech high polluting old methods of processing being a hobbyist. And millions of small scale miners in the Third World do the same. And of course the products of bad mining practices of a century ago are not going away, and will continue to require management.

        But pollution is not a necessary result of properly regulated industrial scale modern operations.

        In its final days of operation (the mine closed in 2000) the main problem with the water discharge from the Homestake Mine (seco

        • by Khyber ( 864651 )

          "Naturally you are using low-tech high polluting old methods of processing being a hobbyist."

          No, in fact every bit of what I mentioned is standard practice in industry TODAY. Your bioleaching is dog-slow and can't compete with even the most basic roasting/smelting process for production volume.

          Try again when you actually work the industry.

    • CRTs tend to contain some really nasty stuff, including lead, barium, and various kinds of phosphor coating.

      Since the recycling industry is vastly a "you break it, you deal with it" kind of deal, those chemicals need to be reclaimed somehow and disposed of. That process will eat into your potential profits like crazy.

      The problem with recycling stuff . . . if that we are trying to recycle stuff that wasn't built to be recycled. The stuff was built to be used, and tossed away. Recycling is an afterthought, so of course it is difficult.

      Now, if we built stuff to be recycled . . . it would be easier and cheaper . . . but it would probably make the stuff . . . (gasp!) . . . more expensive. No one wants that! And things would probably be bigger . . . instead of smaller and thinner like everyone wants.

      So, I'm guessing tha

    • While gold and silver are targets, profit is made from reclaiming other metals such as copper and aluminium. CRTs have toxic materials in them, but they are also made with top grade glass that is not cheap. Does not make up for the expense of processing and properly disposing, but a concerted effort is needed. If recyclers don't take CRTs then they either end up in the regular trash or somewhere in the closest forest. Neither is a good option.

      As far as mining goes, about a third of the world's copper is
      • If recyclers don't take CRTs then they either end up in the regular trash or somewhere in the closest forest. Neither is a good option.

        Actually, the dumping grounds of today are the resource mines of the future.

        The one thing that will be cursed and regretted in the future are the high-temperature incinerators that obliterate the resources that people in the future will seek out in the landfills/resource-zones of the future.

  • Companies that take dedicated recycling have trouble staying afloat. You think paying people minimum wage to distinguish between an "oooo, $0.10 glass bottle" vs "ooo, $0.20 in that plastic thing" in a typical garbage stream is really gonna get you more plastic things?
    • by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Saturday July 07, 2018 @01:13AM (#56905676) Homepage Journal

      Most electronics recycling companies are junking the plastics, and only recycling what's on the boards or other components, then junking the boards and component remnants as well.

      They're not giving a shit about the plastics, since that's not what they're after. They want that gold, copper, silver, aluminum, iridium, platinum, and such.

    • Depends on where you go. Germany for example has among the highest recycling quotes and many e-waste recyclers are run by training and employment centers of local governments. Excellent way to train folks to be electronics technicians and get a step into materials science. In that constellation profits are not the focus.
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday July 06, 2018 @10:56PM (#56905420)
    because recycling the old steel is more profitable. To be fair we also don't build infrastructure anymore (thanks to 40 years of non-stop tax cuts) so we don't need very much of it.
    • by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday July 07, 2018 @01:06AM (#56905654)

      Canada and the UK did the same with recycling old paper. Paper mills went out of business due to lack of demand and even the price of waste paper fell because there was so much of it.

    • because recycling the old steel is more profitable

      And because it's cheaper to import.

      • And also, we haven't "pretty much quit making steel" in the US.

        • For the size of your economy less than 5% of world steel output is pretty much not making it.

          The US is the world's top steel importer. The value of steel shipped into the US was just over $29 billion in 2017.

          It's clearly not because you don't need steel [cnn.com] anymore either.

    • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Here's a 1920s era plant that's reopening thanks to Trump. They were going to open a new plant in India -
      https://www.nbc4i.com/news/pol... [nbc4i.com]

      The left almost ruined out steel industry.

  • Are these numbers right? 5.6g gold per TV sounds too high. That is about 1/5oz, which would be worth about 250$.
    • 5.6 grammes won't go far given how heavy gold is. Even the basic old TVs and VGA monitors had chips in them to deal with all the timing, not to mention OSD, and even the analogue amplifiers were in chips. The power supplies have a chip or two to manage all the switch-mode functions.

      I assume individual packaged transistors/diodes use copper or silver jumper wires because they can have large bonding pads on the silicon, but it is possible gold is required there too.

      LCD/Plasma/OLED will have even more gold s

      • by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "5.6 grammes won't go far given how heavy gold is"

        You can pound gold so thin that you have to cut it with bamboo because it will stick to a metal blade. A pound of gold pounded out to foil will cover en entire football field. How many circuit boards you think that'll cover?

        "LCD/Plasma/OLED will have even more gold simply because of the huge mass of pins driving the display array"

        No, in fact most of those edge pins on the glass are tin, and you attach driving boards to them with a special non-conductive glue

        • by evanh ( 627108 )

          Gees, give me a break. It's not the legs themselves but the chips needed to manage/drive all those legs. The bonded chip pins have gold jumper wires from the package to the silicon.

          • Not the GP, but having bonded chips before. Gold wire is 0.5thou thick and not used universally. The vast majority of chips actually use tin. You'll find gold usually in RF or other highspeed circuits.

            • by evanh ( 627108 )

              Well, I can't see gold having another purpose in the old CRTs. Maybe gold was just the safe bet in the past so ended up in all chips back then.

              Modern digital processors are no slouch on the freq front. And modern TVs have their fair shear of digital processing in them.

              Tin sounds like a crap material for this use. The shear density of I/O, in excess of 1000 pins for some, means tin on the bond points must be a nightmare preventing it whiskering or diffusing in weird ways. Copper seems a decent fit for a

              • by Khyber ( 864651 )

                "LCD, plasma and OLED will additionally have gold plated connectors for the high speed data cabling."

                Maybe on the ZIF sockets, but the cables themselves are usually graphite coated or tin plated.

                • by evanh ( 627108 )

                  I did say "connectors". I'm not sure how that could be interpreted as wires in a cable.

                  • by Khyber ( 864651 )

                    Because connectors also includes the ends of the cable, which are properly called terminated connections.

                    Try actually working the industry instead of being a fake-ass n00b.

              • Modern digital processors are no slouch on the freq front.

                Indeed they are not and I guarantee you'll find gold somewhere in every bit of electronics, but the overwhelming vast majority of little black squares you see on a circuit board are not some high frequency, actually you may find plenty of them aren't even modern as there are some designs from the 70s that have well and truly withstood the test of time.

                Tin sounds like a crap material for this use.

                Indeed it is. Remember this post next time some electronics of yours fail for inexplicable reasons. *sigh*

                LCD, plasma and OLED will additionally have gold plated connectors for the high speed data cabling.

                which part are you considering high-speed? Gold plat

                • by evanh ( 627108 )

                  You were the one talking about speed being relevant. I had classed all chips and connectors equally originally.

                  There is a ton of connections along at least two edges of the flat panel display to form the array drivers. All of that needs quite a few high speed chips.

      • 5.6 grammes won't go far given how heavy gold is.

        5.6 grams of goal is a huge amount given that typical gold in electronics is electroplated to below 1 micrometer thickness. Go check out some youtube videos on people recovering gold from circuit boards. There was a good one from cutting of the PCB fingers from slide in cards since they are almost 100% covered with gold plating. 0.5kg of the fingers (enough to make up something the size of a motherboard completely gold plated on both sides) will net you return of under 1g of gold (a ball the size of a pinhe

    • Yeah, those numbers seem high to me too.
    • I thought the same thing, but I googled the historical price of gold and it was far cheaper before 2004 when CRTs still still common (roughly between $250-400 per oz from the late 80s to around 2004). Still, it would raise the question of why you haven't seen people offering money for old CRTs since gold has been in the $1000+ per oz range, which has been at least 8 years. Nor do I really understand why it would be so hard to recycle. I have a friend who works as a dental ceramist, and they periodically
    • Are these numbers right? 5.6g gold per TV sounds too high. That is about 1/5oz, which would be worth about 250$.

      Back in 1990 when that TV was likely made those 5.6 ounces would only have been worth about $70. Given that a decent size set cost $600+ it's not that outlandish to think the gold in it made up ~10% of the total cost.

      • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        Grams, not ounces.
      • Actually... yes, it is. The numbers are indeed off; these aren't Pentium Pros we're talking about.
      • Yes, it is that outlandish to think that one small aspect of a TV could make up 10% of it's *retail* cost. That would probably be well over half the cost of all the raw materials in the set.

        TVs have been a cutthroat business since at least the 1970s. Anything that expensive would have been cost reduced out a long time ago.

        • That's assuming it COULD be reduced. The biggest expense for airliners is fuel, accounting for 20-30% of all expenditures. Yet, while some advances continue to be made, the overall percentage is never going to be half of that or less.

          I'm not saying that there really IS that much gold in these sets. I have only the vaguest idea about how CRTs were built so I'm certainly not an expert on the subject. I'm just pointing out that it's not as implausible as the OP implied. I would love to hear from someone w

    • I can't think why there would be ANY gold in consumer electronics these days. Gold was widely used in electronics connectors prior to the 1970s because it's a very good conductor, and it doesn't oxidize. But when Gold prices soared from $32 an Oz(28g) to (briefly) $800/Ounce (28g) and settled around $400 /Oz, Gold was eliminated where possible and was reduced to VERY thin coatings elsewhere. But it turned out that very thin coatings aren't very compatible with gas-tight connector technology (the GT socke

      • Of course there is gold in modern electronics, best circuit board and connector coating there is. And of course legacy chip packages, whenever you need to wire up something tiny, gold wire is your go-to solution, welds on physical pressure. There is not as much gold as in older electronics, but it's still there. Cost of it is of course marginal compared to product cost. There is a whole lot more silver in modern electronics than there used to be however, thanks to lead free solder. And of course, to get to
      • by evanh ( 627108 )

        Someone that can't be ass'd to try, would be the weak minded one.

  • Reclaiming this stuff involves acid and all sorts of other toxic materials. And no company would just bury this stuff would they?!! Basically the West outsourcing their pollution...
  • Perhaps with the current EPA leaders it could be done, they don't care if people around the factory lose their teeth and hair and livers, but if you do it so that the environment isn't poisoned, it can't be done at a profit.

    • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      So do you have any actual proof about the EPA not caring or is your opinion all based on what the main stream media has told you to believe?
      Just curios.

  • Nothing new.

    Belarus mostly fills National Bank gold reserve from electronic waste.
    http://unidragmet.by/o-nas

  • http://www.newser.com/story/25... [newser.com] Oh those wealthy people...

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