Mass Matters – Environmental Effects due to Raw Material Abstraction using Mobile Phones as an Example
20.5
%
23
Iron
% Plastics
14.2
24.9
% Aluminium
% Silicon
All this is in a mobile telephone (Material components of the average mobile phone)
6.9
%
6.3
%
2.2
%
Small electronic devices are real stocks of raw materials. In one a mobile phone there are more than 35 different materials hiding. Among them (in very small amounts ) precious metals such as gold and silver or critical metals such as palladium or tantalum, but also pollutants such as mercury and arsenic.
1
% Others
Lead
Zinc
1 Tin
%
Source: IW Consult/vbw 2009
Copper
All that glitters is not gold
22.4
Gold (Au) Mining moves and processes large amounts of rock (rock to metal ratio: 750,000,000 t/t), which is associated with high energy expenditure and environmental pollution. Processing uses toxic materials such as cyanides and mercury. In small-scale mining operations these pollutants reach water, air and soil directly. But in industrial mining, where poisonous cyanide lye is kept in a closed cycle and treated in sediment basins, there is a danger of an uncontrolled release into the environment media. The failure of a dam in such a tailings facility near Baia Mare, Romania, in 2000 released about 100 tonnes of cyanide into the rivers Tisza and Danube which led to an extensive destruction of hydrobiology and fish stock in the river Tisza. (Sources: UBA 2011; Wachter 2003)
tonnes
of gold are needed alone for the expected 1.4 billion mobile phones to be sold in 2011.
A mobile phone (weight 100g) contains on average
1.6
milligrams
of gold.
16
Security of supply: Uncritical Environmental relevance: Very high
Source: EITO, IDATE 2011 Source: IW Consult/vbw 2009
Producer countries: South Africa 12% Australia 10.7% USA 10.3% China 9.2%
What Matters 2011