By Star Chang, posted Apr 2, 2012 at 11:35 AM, 929 views,

100 Million Cell Phones Can Extract 1,500 kg of Gold ?

A total of 1,500 kilograms of gold could be salvaged from cell phones thrown away in China each year. Approximately 400 million mobile phones in the world are discarded every year, 100 million of which come from Chinese users. A recent report showed that 150 grams of gold, 100kg of copper and 3kg of silver can be withdrawn from one ton of discarded cell phones. But only an estimated 3 percent of unused mobile phones are recycled worldwide, and the figure is only 1 percent in China. Dumping cell phones can cause serious damage to the environment. A cell phone battery, for example, can polluted up to 60,000 liters of water. To protect our planet, manufacturers, dealers and consumers should be participate the recycling of cell phones. Nokia has already collected 160 tones of unused phones and related accessories between the year 2005 till 2011.

SOURCE: CYOL.net (Chinese translated)