Smartphones are made from many different raw materials, including rare metals such as gold and palladium, and minerals like cobalt and coltan. These are just a few of the many materials involved.
Did you know that from 1 ton of smartphones (excluding batteries), you can extract 140 kilograms of copper, 3.14 kilograms of silver, 300 grams of gold, 130 grams of palladium, and 3 grams of platinum? Although the amounts per device are small, one ton of smartphones yields up to 20 times more gold than one ton of gold ore. This shows how labor-intensive mining is and how much damage it can cause to the environment and living conditions.
By reusing or recycling smartphones, discarded devices are given a better future instead of ending up in the trash. Harmful substances are prevented from entering the environment, and scarce raw materials can be reused, reducing the need for new extraction. This process is often referred to as “urban mining.”
Recovered materials can be reused in various industries, including:
Automotive industry (catalysts)
Electronics supply chain (semiconductors)
Civil engineering (materials for roads and dikes)
Banking (gold reserves)
Jewelry industry (jewelry)
Plastics industry (traffic bumps and cones)
Unfortunately, only a small portion of mobile phones are currently recycled. This is a missed opportunity, as recycling 2.5 million phones results in:
a reduction of 12.6 million kg of CO₂ emissions (equivalent to removing 9,801 cars from the road for one year)
savings of 160 million kWh of electricity (enough to power 13,872 households for one year)
a reduction of 750,000 kg of waste
a reduction of 315,000 kg of toxic waste
