I almost missed this piece from the Times Magazine about cellphone recycling. I’m glad I didn’t. It makes me very glad to see that someone is out there reclaiming all those metals.
The Belgian company Umicore is in the business of reclaiming those materials. It extracts 17 metals from our unwanted televisions, computers and cellphones and from more ominous-sounding industrial byproducts like drosses and anode slimes. Umicore harvests silver from spent photo-developing solutions collected at American big-box stores and sells it to Italian jewelers. The company describes its work as “aboveground mining.”
…
The metals exit the smelter’s base as a glowing sludge. It streams into another caldron the height of a house. From there, it moves into tanks of acid. The acid is electrocuted. As electricity flows through the mixture, copper accumulates on the tank’s end plate. I watched a giant claw move across the ceiling, rip out the plate and, with a violent whack, cleave off a gleaming layer of 99.9 percent pure copper, with the unmistakable sheen of a new penny. It was thrilling to see something so clean and recognizable emerge from such an alien process.
The writer, Jon Mooallem, then goes on to talk about the challenges in e-waste, other companies working to recycle phones and monitors, etc. Just a great piece of reporting and writing and one that I hope everyone will file away for reference when it comes time to toss out their gadgets.
The Afterlife of Cellphones [NYTimes.com] (Thanks, Fan!)
Image: Richard Barnes for the Times
There is a way to recycle and benefit the troops.
http://cellphonesforsoldiers.com will take old phones, recycle them, and turn the cash into calling cards for troops.
There are drop points on the website, or you can print a postage paid label and mail phones directly.
Electrolysis plants really appeal to the evil genius section of my brain. I mean, what other business can legitimately keep huge vats of boiling electrofied acid?
For some reason, a lot of tech nuts (myself included) we really oblivious to how horrendous computer and device waste was to the earth. It’s just in the last five years that we’re starting to see some really smart recycling programs to make the most of these things that we upgrade every 3 years and get rid of.
My last phone was donated to a women’s shelter when I upgraded, but I hope it ended up recycled when it gave up the ghost (if it has, yet).
Somehow I doubt it.
Bugs: I agree with everything you just said.