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So where did all the non-gold material go? The millions of tons that wasn't precious metals? I see little point in recycling something if 99.99% by volume goe
by sandworm101 5y ago
So where did all the non-gold material go? The millions of tons that wasn't precious metals? I see little point in recycling something if 99.99% by volume goes to the landfill anyway.
- vikramkr 5y agoProfit. Recycling rare materials is profitable. Keeping stuff out of landfills is not really why stuff is recycled- thats why we had that whole crisis recently with Recycling materials building up with no destination
- BurningFrog 5y agoThe point is the symbolic gesture. This doesn't help with any environmental goals.
- CydeWeys 5y agoIt does, because precious metals mining is environmentally intensive, and by recovering some from trashed electronics instead you're having to do a little bit less mining. It's something like 31 tonnes of ore must be processed per ounce of gold yielded. That's a lot of energy, fuel, caustic chemicals, and polluting mine tailings.
- BurningFrog 5y agoLots of resources are also used when mining trashed electronics for gold. Which "lots" is worse? I don't know, and neither do you.
- CydeWeys 5y agoNo, way less resources are used in electronics recycling than in mining virgin resources. You're making a false equivalence here, or some weird kind of appeal to ignorance. Yes, it's true that some things are unknowable, but not this.
- BurningFrog 5y agoIf you have a source that quantifies this, I'd be happy to believe it.