Japanese Dumps = Precious Metals
BZou | September 8, 2008
Japan’s high-tech rubbish dumps - the vast “urban mines” of landfill outside every big city - have grown so huge that the country now ranks among the biggest natural resource nations in the world.
Tens of millions of defunct mobile phones, discarded televisions, PCs and MP3 players conceal a “virtual lode” of hundreds of tonnes of precious metals. An even greater seam may be lurking forgotten - but not yet discarded - in Japan’s attics and garages.
According to new calculations by the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan has unwittingly accumulated three times as much gold, silver and indium than the entire world uses or buys in a year. In the case of platinum, Japan’s urban mines may contain six times annual global consumption.
You can read the full article here.
News Via: Japan Probe
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Now if there were only a cost effect non toxic
Now if there were only a cost effect non toxic method of getting all those metals back.
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