China annually can get 1500kg gold from discarded phones

Edited and Translated by Han Shasha, People's Daily Online

With increasing mobile phone users and developing technologies, the number of discarded mobile phones soars.

It is reported that about 400 million mobile phones are discarded each year, of which, China has nearly 100 million.

It is predicated that, by 2020, the number of discarded mobile phones in China will increase seven-fold, compared with the number in 2007.

There are various precious materials in a mobile phone, including 0.01 percent of gold, twenty to twenty-five percent of copper and forty to fifty percent of recycling plastic. A study shows that 150 grams of gold, 100 kilograms of copper and 3 kilograms of silver can be extracted from one ton of discarded mobile phones.

Under current situation, 100 million discarded cell phones in China weigh 10,000 tons, from which, 1,500 kilograms of gold, one million kilograms of copper and 30,000 kilograms of silver can be extracted.