This is InterfaceFLOR’s blog on sustainability and we comment on almost anything related to sustainability because we love the subject. We want to cut the fluff out of sustainability and focus on the facts. On how we can eliminate our impacts by 2020, on how to deal with greenwash, on how to use LCAs and EPDs and many other acronyms that you will start to love soon. Welcome to Cut the Fluff.
The Urban Mine
Precious metals and rare earths are the object of a new debate on scarcity.
There is increasing interest in the concept of the URBAN MINE, which is mining the precious metals and rare earths from mobile phones, other electronics, wind turbines, etc.
German Green MEP Reinhard Bьtikofer is leading the EU on how Europe could develop an effective rare materials strategy, where recycling could be crucial.
Read more here: Recycling key to effective rare materials strategy
A mobile phone contains 100 times as much gold as gold ore (kg for kg). The problem is gathering them back…
One the biggest recycling plants in Europe is Umicore. They take back from mobile phones to catalysts.
Umicore recently said: “One ton of mobile phones contains from 300 to 350 grams of gold” and “one fifth of cobalt can also be recycled in this way”.
Download the EU’s critical raw materials report here
Urban mining is usually a nice resource on this topic. See post on Europe’s waste leakage.