DailyDirt: Valuable Metals Abound

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Things that we use every day, like cell phones, computers, and other consumer electronics, actually contain a wide variety of valuable metals, such as europium, dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, and yttrium. When these electronics reach the end of their useful life, these metals are often lost to landfills if they're not properly recycled. Rather than let these useful materials go to waste, the U.S. Department of Energy is now working to recover rare earth elements from used consumer products, using methods employed in nuclear fuel reprocessing. Here are some other examples of ways to get at valuable metals. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: asteroid mining, electrolysis, metals, mining, recycling
Companies: deep space industries, metalysis, planetary resources


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2013 @ 6:26pm

    we'll be mining our garbage soon...

    Trash will be too valuable to store in landfills.... NJ is sitting on a gold mine (perhaps literally).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 11 Mar 2013 @ 6:55pm

      Re: we'll be mining our garbage soon...

      That. We have been overusing our resources for far too long. Ironically capitalism itself is the source of the sheer amount of garbage we generate today and it'll be the solution as it'll become profitable to recover stuff from garbage. Imagine ppl mining landfills for stuff?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2013 @ 7:22pm

    Couldn't this be crowdsourced?

    Every home consume materials shouldn't that waste be transformed at the home level somehow, turn every house into a mini refinery for raw materials.

    I think about cells each and everyone of them do something and their waste is collected and disposed and then it gets reused by other organims.

    Beer is something that most people would understand in this manner.

    Yeast multiply and consume sugar and poops alcohol, that then is reuse by us to produce other things, and when we poop we create an environment for other bacteria to live in.

    So we are reaching a point were turning houses into production cells make sense.

    If any country is a human body, that body is missing a liver.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      McCrea (profile), 11 Mar 2013 @ 9:28pm

      Re:

      Screw the philosopher's stone, we need to find gold-pooping bacteria?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2013 @ 4:44am

      Re:

      Landfills are the bowels of this country. There's gold in them bowels!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2013 @ 7:04am

        Re: Re:

        gold, precious metals, diamonds, energy, fuels.

        also there is a great deal of gold found in sewage treatment plants, seem a high percentage of people lose their gold fillings by swallowing them. Also diamonds are commonly found in raw sewage. (for some reason). But lots of got. (and corn !!!,, chew your corn) :)

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Marvin, 11 Mar 2013 @ 7:58pm

    I still can not find any Illudium for my Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2013 @ 7:01am

    it's commonly known that there is more gold in junked electronics than what is present in the raw rock and dirt you take out of a gold mine.

    but the extraction of the metals and elements from electronics is a very dangerous and toxic process. (as is gold mining generally) (but more so).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2013 @ 4:42pm

    "Where did you get your B.A.?"
    "Murdoch University."
    "How were your grades?"
    "All A's. I guess you could say I was a member of an elite team."
    "Now the world you must face, man."
    "I hope someone can hire me."

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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