Urban Mining

I visit Officeworks now more than twice a fortnight because of printing purposes and to satisfy my stationery fetish. Out of all the times I have visited Officeworks, though, I have failed to see something sly sitting in their little entrance until today.

A recycling bin with three compartments: one for old ink cartridges, one for old batteries and one for old mobile phones. Upon a singular glance, one would agree that Officeworks is benefiting the environment, that they are now more sustainable than yours and that you should thank the Gods for having somewhere to stash your old mobile phone without feeling guilty about harming Pat the platypus. But you are wrong. Here is what they claim their mobile recycling does:

Well, they certainly left out the part that despite the conservation of natural resources and the saving of energy and whatnot, they are assisting in the harvesting of valuable and precious metals and materials that are "melted down and sold as ingots to jewellers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards of mobile phones because gold conducts electricity even better than copper". It is also noted that "a tonne of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounces) of gold on average, whereas a tonne of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounces) or more" - still want to donate your old phones? The same amount of mobile phones, apart from all of that gold, "also contains around 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg (6.6 lb) of silver, among other metals". Think about that. And here is what Mobile Muster says about what components break away from phones and what they use them for:

Right, they want your old mobile phones so that they can create kettles and fences and batteries; they want your mobile phones so that they can sell ingots of gold melted from them to jewellers, they want your mobile phones so that they can sell this gold back to other phone manufacturers so that more phones can be sold and abandoned and that more gold can be sold in the name of 'sustainability'. By donating your old phones, all you are really sustaining is their pockets.

I remember when Mobile Muster first began. They sent out information packs to my school, I was around seventeen at the time, and they gave us bags to deposit our old mobile phones and our parents' mobile phones and return them to school where they will safely be given back to Mobile Muster. I thought it was a wicked idea, and in the good sense, because of the poster they gave us showing pans, computers and all other goods being reproduced from clicky little gadgets. But I never donated, and I am glad that I did not.

Think twice before donating your old mobile phone. Why put a company one step towards riches when you can salvage parts from what you own and sell them off for prices far greater than what you paid for your old mobile phones? We have all been beaten to it, though, a company called "Eco-System, established 20 years ago near Tokyo, typically produces about 200-300 kg (440-660 lb) of gold bars a month with a 99.99 percent purity, worth about $5.9 million to $8.8 million."

Officeworks is attempting to get even more richer than they currently are, with the assistance of Mobile Muster. Help me to stop them. Do not donate old phones.