The quantity of gold recoverable from a collection of discarded cellular telephones is a question of resource recovery and electronic waste management. Smartphones contain trace amounts of gold, used for its conductivity and resistance to corrosion in circuit boards and connectors. The exact amount varies by model and manufacturer, but it is typically measured in milligrams per phone. Therefore, assessing the gold content in a batch of one hundred phones requires an understanding of average gold content per device, multiplied by the number of phones.
Reclaiming precious metals from electronic waste offers significant benefits. It reduces the need for new mining operations, which are environmentally disruptive. Furthermore, extracting gold and other valuable materials from discarded electronics helps to conserve resources and promotes a circular economy. Historically, recovering precious metals from scrap materials has been practiced, but modern e-waste recycling offers more efficient and environmentally sound methods.