Just read a report on e-waste that made me double-check my parts bins

I was looking up some recycling rules for our shop and found a 2023 EPA report. It said that for every million cell phones we recycle, we can get back about 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, and 75 pounds of gold. That's a crazy amount of valuable stuff just sitting in old devices people throw out. It really hit me how much we're just tossing in the trash as 'scrap' without a second thought. I'm going through my 'dead board' pile this weekend to pull anything that looks salvageable before it goes out. Has anyone else set up a better system for pulling precious metals from their junk bins?

2 comments

2 Comments

perez.mia2d agoTop Commenter

Didn't my buddy find a gold pin in an old VCR once?

umamurphy2d ago

Gold pin? @perez.mia that's wild.