Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

AutoModerator t1_izx7h5r wrote

Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

Bubbagumpredditor t1_izxf0cl wrote

Pretty sure the gold from sim cards is the same element as gold anywhere else.

51

ubermeisters t1_izxoyzw wrote

Well this won't last. it's a nice idea but there's just no way that it's cheaper to recycle gold than use new. it's called funding scam. in no world is it lucrative to collect gold from used sim cards, and be profitable.

−6

HockeyCoachHere t1_izxr0bi wrote

What does SIM cards and/or recycling have to do with gold catalysts?

Seems like clickbait.

19

ubermeisters t1_izxwmcj wrote

no, it's not worth it to get the gold out. It's "worth it" to get paid by a larger company who doesn't want to deal with properly disposing/classifying/sorting of waste, but you get the gold as a bonus.

−4

striderwhite t1_izylzny wrote

Oh yeah, there's some gold there..to think I've thrown away some SIM cards already in the trash. But the quantity of gold in a SIM card must be really low, though.

2

cmack482 t1_j02mh2w wrote

You can absolutely get precious metal from electronic waste. The issue with this story is that the amount you would get off of a SIM card would be significantly less than the cost of a postage stamp for someone to mail it in.

If they magically stumbled on a giant bin of SIM cards, sure it would be worth it. But people go through so few of them that no one has a drawer of them sitting around waiting to be recycled like batteries or plastic bags.

1