Page 668 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

from scrap from tantalum-containing alloys and manufac-
tured materials. Currently the industry estimates that recy-
cling accounts for 20–25% of the tantalum available for use
in products. This percentage has been growing quickly, but its
future growth will depend on how quickly we expand recy-
cling efforts for used cell phones and other electronic waste
(pp. 642–643) and on how well we enable recycling facilities
to recover metals from these products.

We can recycle metals from e-waste

Electronic waste, or e-waste, from discarded computers,
printers, cell phones, handheld devices, and other electronic
products is rising fast—and that e-waste contains hazardous
substances (p. 642). Recycling old electronic devices helps
keep them out of landfills and also helps us conserve valu-
able minerals such as tantalum. As Dr. Timothy Townsend
(featured in Chapter 22’s Science behind the Story, Figure 23.13 When you recycle aluminum cans, you con-
pp. 646–647) has put it, “If we know these metals are, over- tribute to valuable efforts to save mineral resources, money,
all, bad for us, it doesn’t make sense to keep digging them up and energy.
from the earth’s crust and bringing them into the biosphere
while—at the same time—we’re taking the ones we’ve
already got and burying them.”
In fact, each of the 1.7 billion cell phones sold each year nations in particular readily buy used cell phones, because
contains about 200 chemical compounds and close to a dol- they are inexpensive and because land-line phone service
lar’s worth of precious metals (Figure 23.14). Upgrades and does not always exist in poor and rural areas. Alternatively,
improvements render over 130 million cell phones obsolete the phone may be dismantled in a developing country and the
each year in the United States alone, and an estimated 500 various parts refurbished and reused, or recycled for their met-
million old cell phones are currently lying inactive in people’s als. Either way, you are helping to extend the availability of
homes and offices. resources through reuse and recycling and to decrease waste
When you turn in your old phone to a recycling and of valuable minerals.
reuse center rather than discarding it, the phone may be refur- Today only about 10% percent of old cell phones are
bished and resold in a developing country. People in African recycled. That leaves a long way to go! As more of us recycle
our phones, computers, and other electronic items, more tan-
talum and other metals may be recovered and reused. By recy-
cling more, we can reduce demand for virgin ore and decrease
Amplifier and receiver: pressure on African people and ecosystems where coltan is
Arsenic and gallium
mined. Throughout the world, recycling to make better use of
the mineral resources we have already mined will help mini-
mize the impacts of mining and assure us access to resources
farther into the future.

Conclusion
Screen: Indium
Circuitry:
copper We depend on a diversity of minerals and metals to help
gold manufacture products widely used in our society. We mine
palladium these nonrenewable resources by various methods, accord-
platinum CHAPTER 23 • Min ERA ls A nd Mining
silver ing to how the minerals are distributed. Economically effi-
tungsten cient mining methods have greatly contributed to our material
Case: Petroleum wealth, but they have also resulted in extensive environmental
and magnesium impacts, ranging from habitat loss to acid drainage. Resto-
ration efforts and enhanced regulation help to minimize the
environmental and social impacts of mining, although to some
extent these impacts will always exist. We can lengthen our
Figure 23.14 your cell phone contains a diversity of mined access to mineral resources and make our mineral use more
materials from around the world. Figure 23.5 lists the nations sustainable by maximizing the recovery and recycling of key
that are major producers of these minerals. minerals. 667

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