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Recycling: what happens to my cell phone after it dies?
Have you ever wondered what happens to your old, no longer functional or simply unsightly cell phone after it has been handed in at the electronics retailer or the nearest disposal point? We have dealt with this topic in more detail for you and summarized the most important points.
Why is recycling so important?
There are at least 5 good reasons why recycling is not only good for us, but also for our environment.
Reduction of ecological deficits – the more recycled or so-called secondary raw materials we use for the manufacture of new products, the smaller our need for primary raw materials. This protects the environment and, above all, the natural retreat of our wild animals.
Contribution to climate protection – less extraction of mineral resources also means less CO2 emissions. Old devices, for example, contain much larger proportions of precious metals than we would find in natural rock. The raw material recovery (recycling) causes a fifth less CO2 emissions.
Lower losses in the recovery of raw materials – through professional recycling, a large part of the raw materials already used can be reused. With this process, a new extraction from nature is no longer necessary.
Reducing scarcity of raw materials – the scarcity of raw materials is drastically counteracted by reusing raw materials that have already been mined (recycled).
Reduction of social consequences – since the extraction of raw materials in socially critical countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo repeatedly leads to major conflicts, we would not only protect our environment through more recycling, but also ensure more peace and quiet.
What actually happens to my cell phone after it dies?
In addition to the recycling of household waste, paper and cardboard, there is also the recycling of mineral resources, among others. This aims to recycle already used raw materials from household and electrical appliances.
The collected electrical devices are first separated according to their materials and substances, processed and put to a new use. In order to be able to imagine this process in more detail, let’s go through it together using cell phone recycling.
1. First, the pollutant-containing components such as the battery and display are separated from the cell phone.
2. In a further step, the rest of the cell phones are ground into coarse-grained granules in a kind of grinder.
3. The ferrous metals are now separated from the rest of the cell phone with the magnetic cutter.
4. In order to separate the plastic from the aluminum, electrostatics, air currents and the well-known force of gravity are used.
5. The metals that are separated out are melted down and refined in several stages. This results in precious metal residues and almost pure raw copper (this only contains a few traces of other precious metals).
6. In order to separate the raw copper from the rest of the noble metals such as gold, silver, platinum and rhodium adhering to it, this is cleaned in a sulfuric acid bath in several steps.
Do you know how many natural resources are in your cell phone?
Your cell phone contains around 60% raw materials – many of which come from our tropical rainforests. Because these raw materials are not infinite, recycling is an important issue that affects us all. In order to be able to better imagine the raw material content of a cell phone, we have listed an example below.
Example: A ton of cell phones contains about 150g – 400g of gold. A ton of gold ore contains only 0.2g of the purest gold.
According to the UN, humans cause around 20 – 50 million tons of e-waste (discarded electrical items) worldwide every year.
What can you do for your environment?
Unfortunately, the perfect solution for everyone does not yet exist. But each of us can make a small but very relevant contribution to our environment.
Our tips:
Shop consciously and carefully. Take a look here to see how your groceries, luxury items and electrical appliances are packed.
Separate the resulting waste carefully into plastic, metal, electronic waste and batteries as well as cardboard, paper and general waste.
Take everything that cannot be disposed of with your residual waste to the nearest collection point.
Repeat these steps over and over again. If we all stick to it, our environment and thus us humans will be better off.
Conclusion:
Each of us can make a contribution to our environment by separating waste at home.
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