We Threw Away $15 Billion in Gold Last Year

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  • Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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    In 2022, humanity threw roughly 15 billion dollars of gold into the trash. That's because gold plays a small but significant role in our electronics. E-waste is a major issue these days, and scientists are hunting for better ways to extract and reuse the precious metals that help run our world.
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 524

  • @morgan40654
    @morgan40654 21 день тому +193

    This is why planned obsolescence and anti-right-to-repair actions are so dangerous.

  • @MatthewMakesAU
    @MatthewMakesAU 22 дні тому +500

    Today's landfill is tomorrow's minesite

    • @glenngriffon8032
      @glenngriffon8032 22 дні тому +26

      There's GOLD in them thar landfills!

    • @FlexxibleFree
      @FlexxibleFree 22 дні тому +2

      Facts!

    • @goosenotmaverick1156
      @goosenotmaverick1156 22 дні тому +3

      Sad facts

    • @aredditor4272
      @aredditor4272 21 день тому +2

      That's quite the exaggeration. I think there's a great underestimation at how much metals are recycled.
      I scrap, what's thought to be thrown away is picked up by folks like me.
      No idea where sci show got their data on supposed ewaste in landfills, but I'd bet it's not quality data.

    • @DM9_eyo
      @DM9_eyo 21 день тому +6

      I've been saying that for years. The concentration of iron, steel, copper, gold, etc is insane. The problem is figuring out how to safely, efficiently mining without destroying the environment.

  • @jehan60188
    @jehan60188 22 дні тому +34

    Reading the title out loud “we threw away fifteen billion dollars of dollars in gold last year” 😅

    • @ImmortalTimothyM
      @ImmortalTimothyM 21 день тому +4

      I am glad to see someone else noticed.

    • @elektro3000
      @elektro3000 21 день тому +3

      Me too 😂

    • @jimmurphy6095
      @jimmurphy6095 20 днів тому +1

      No worse than hearing people say they stopped by the ATM machine I guess...

  • @krw5723
    @krw5723 22 дні тому +65

    So far, last I checked, something like $60 billion has been mine from the Black Hills. The Black Hills, which legally belong to the Lakota (and should belong to a couple more tribes as well, and they would describe themselves as part of the land, and this area sacred as the birthplace of humanity, like a temple). Lakota are the poorest tribe in the nation, the poorest people in the nation. And yet, gold taken from their land would make them all wealthy in American culture. And the government keeps them poor so they can't fight back. So they can't be louder about the United States government breaking its own treaty of Fort Laramie

    • @MaekarManastorm
      @MaekarManastorm 22 дні тому +2

      No 1 cares

    • @gwendYlferth
      @gwendYlferth 21 день тому

      @@MaekarManastorm I care ❤️ ur a piece of trash baby

    • @THE-X-Force
      @THE-X-Force 21 день тому +18

      @@MaekarManastorm What's wrong with you?

    • @3nertia
      @3nertia 21 день тому +6

      Welcome to capitalism ...

    • @angusmatheson8906
      @angusmatheson8906 21 день тому

      ​@@MaekarManastorm I care, you psychopath.

  • @malavoy1
    @malavoy1 21 день тому +4

    Gold, though rare, is not a 'rare earth metal'. That's a different group in the table of elements.

  • @pengyfelix
    @pengyfelix 22 дні тому +4

    Material reclamation AND cheese?! That is a win-win.

  • @krakhedd
    @krakhedd 21 день тому +3

    Could tell by the way you were holding it that it's not actually a key of Au - you're waving it about as if it's plaster or aluminum :D

  • @1One2Three5Eight13
    @1One2Three5Eight13 21 день тому +4

    We took the kids to the ROM the other day, and there was a display in the minerals gallery. One wall was a nice stone wall, and if you looked at the little plaque you'd see a small amount of gold sitting next to it. It was explained that that amount of gold is what you'd expect to find in the amount of gold ore that was used to do the wall.

    • @01ai01
      @01ai01 21 день тому

      The Royal Ontario Museum?

    • @1One2Three5Eight13
      @1One2Three5Eight13 21 день тому +2

      @@01ai01 Yes, sorry, I need to be better about remembering that I'm talking to the world, not just parts of Canada.

  • @samsonsoturian6013
    @samsonsoturian6013 21 день тому +2

    I wish they'd build electronics as sturdy as cars/houses. Gone are the days when everything was obsolete within a year

  • @zukaro
    @zukaro 21 день тому +2

    I don't think I've ever thrown away any of my electronics. The rare times I've gotten rid of things I've sold them (like, when I upgraded my GPU, I sold my old one on eBay, and same thing with when I upgraded my phone, and when I upgraded my Nintendo Switch to the OLED model). It just feels so wasteful to throw things out; I'd rather sell it and help subsidize the cost of the replacement item, or at the very least donate it so someone else can use it.

    • @zukaro
      @zukaro 21 день тому

      Though to me, technology should be treated with respect. It's disrespectful to throw things away just because you don't use them anymore. To me, my electronics are like a part of myself. If I'm gonna get rid of them I want them to go to a new home.

  • @jonijokunen3542
    @jonijokunen3542 20 днів тому +1

    The Swiss mining gold with cheese is like the most stereotypical thing ever 😂

  • @aaron9797
    @aaron9797 21 день тому +1

    at work we extract the usefully metals out of broken equipment

  • @ArthurHansen
    @ArthurHansen 20 днів тому

    Kind of ignores that gold is sometimes the by-product in other mines. IIRC, the local mine here in Salt Lake is mostly copper, but produces a lot of gold, too.

  • @zachsmith8633
    @zachsmith8633 20 днів тому

    I used to fantasize about recycling precious metals from electronic waste as a business, but the logistics aren't profitable unless it is done at a ridiculously large scale

  • @AFPinerosG
    @AFPinerosG 21 день тому

    I love this channel so much. It's always very educative, goes in depth and is hilarious. I love you guys.

  • @marcbarrett9767
    @marcbarrett9767 21 день тому

    There are a couple of small businesses here that make good money tearing apart old electronics and sending the circuit boards to be crushed for the gold.

  • @aellalee4767
    @aellalee4767 19 днів тому

    I hope we do get better at urban mining. We send so much to waste and mining is so hard on the environment.

  • @TheSleepSteward
    @TheSleepSteward 20 днів тому +1

    Don't know if I missed it in the video or not but; when we turn it into a soup of electronics... Do we just throw away all the other metals? Or are they on top of extracting the gold, also extracting everything else?

    • @adamsfusion
      @adamsfusion 18 днів тому +2

      They reclaim everything worth reclaiming

  • @baltimoreluke
    @baltimoreluke 21 день тому

    Gold is one of the world's MOST recycled metals. Almost a third of the total gold supply comes from recycled material. And, yeah we could technically mine gold out of landfills, because as you mentioned there is a lot of it. But what most people don't understand about gold resources is 'size doesn't matter.' It doesn't matter how much gold you have in the ground if you can't produce it at a reasonable profit. There's also an estimated $20 billion worth of gold in seawater. But to extract that gold from all the world's seawater would likely cost more money than exists.

  • @raphaelgarcia9576
    @raphaelgarcia9576 21 день тому

    I thought the episode was over when you transitioned to the sponsor. I’m glad I stuck around for the rest of the episode.

  • @EmilyJelassi
    @EmilyJelassi 21 день тому

    Whenever I get a new device or replace on3, ALWAYS ask if the old one csn be recycled or donated to charity!!❤❤❤ please , let us know when this recycling system gets better , more available and better for the environment ☺️🙏

  • @shannonolivas9524
    @shannonolivas9524 21 день тому

    We just treat gold and even rarer resources in electronics like they weren't finite.

  • @Evo-nt6be
    @Evo-nt6be 20 днів тому

    Our species' obsession with shiny rocks is one of many reasons why I'm so misanthropic.

  • @shellym79
    @shellym79 22 дні тому +1

    There's no where in my area to send these items to be recycled.

    • @goosenotmaverick1156
      @goosenotmaverick1156 22 дні тому +2

      We have a place called "Free Geek" they repurpose, recondition, resell, etc, donated old electronics. It helps employ folks as well as keeps a load of this stuff from hitting our landfills.
      Sometimes it's not the local government providing the service, but rather a private company

  • @zerospace101
    @zerospace101 20 днів тому

    Problem is that it costs more to recover the gold than what you get back in most cases.

  • @aliengeo
    @aliengeo 20 днів тому

    See, this is why we need to fund SciShow more. They can't even afford to drop a measly $75k to prove a point.

  • @DurokSubaka
    @DurokSubaka 21 день тому

    Please send a letter to Microsoft thanking them making all previous hardware obsolete just so that their new OS will work on it saying that this new OS can’t be hacked and then a year later the OS became hacked and now you still can’t install windows 10 an unsupported device without bypassing its installer.

  • @militantpacifist4087
    @militantpacifist4087 21 день тому +1

    So it’s true that One Krabs trash is another Plankton’s treasure.

  • @General12th
    @General12th 21 день тому

    Hi Stefan!

  • @janijaakola3179
    @janijaakola3179 21 день тому

    nilered has good video about getting gold out of electronics

  • @NextNate03
    @NextNate03 21 день тому

    Not to mention that it's a non-renewable resource.

  • @Rorschach1024
    @Rorschach1024 20 днів тому

    I have been advocating mining landfills for a while.

  • @blacksmith67
    @blacksmith67 17 днів тому

    Okay, the real takeaway from this video should be that we throw away enough e-waste that the minuscule amount of gold in each piece adds up to 270000kg.
    62 billion kg of e-waste made by almost 8 billion people.
    That is almost 8 kg per person.

  • @jensonee
    @jensonee 22 дні тому +3

    the less we have to extract from the ground. excellent point, good conclusion.

  • @Brian-bp5pe
    @Brian-bp5pe 17 днів тому

    Hey, maybe this is a good application for AI-aided design. I suspect better design at the production end would help immeasurably with recycling at the deconstruction end.

  • @compulsive_curiosity
    @compulsive_curiosity 18 днів тому

    Gonna be filled with lithium too from all the vapes and phones and anything else we throw away now

  • @stevepettersen3283
    @stevepettersen3283 22 дні тому

    I feel regardless of the recovery amount, there is always a large demand for gold. Some people want their own version of Scrooge McDuck's money vault.

  • @Azguella
    @Azguella 22 дні тому +1

    How long until we result to cruching the waste and panning all that old school way?

    • @lukethedank13
      @lukethedank13 22 дні тому

      Doesnt work. You have to use a chemical or metalurgical proceses.

  • @emmettturner9452
    @emmettturner9452 21 день тому

    Someday microscopic self-replicating nanobots will mine everything useful from our landfills.

    • @elektro3000
      @elektro3000 21 день тому +1

      I hope they don't also mine everything useful from my body while I'm still trying to use it.

    • @emmettturner9452
      @emmettturner9452 21 день тому

      @@elektro3000 Michael Crichton has already turned it into a novel (“Prey”). ;) Too bad it didn’t get the Jurassic Park treatment.

  • @Praisethesunson
    @Praisethesunson 20 днів тому

    If we didn't intentionally brick the machines we put all this energy and resources into. Then you wouldn't be compelled to buy a new one.
    -Apple's literal business model

  • @daniel_rossy_explica
    @daniel_rossy_explica 21 день тому

    I did update my PC last year, but as far as I remember, I didn't throw away my components, I could sware I donated them to a recycling plant.
    Edit: No, wait. I was lying. This PC is a update because I gave my last PC to my sister. I don't remmber what I did with that last PC, but I used if for years.

  • @ReflectedMiles
    @ReflectedMiles 21 день тому

    You missed the main point: If we aren't going to recycle or recover much from landfills, then scientists will just create more without mining. You know, like, synthesized gold. Humanity being what it is, scientists have never thought of this or attempted it so far, I'm sure. 🤔🤣

  • @JamieAlice92
    @JamieAlice92 22 дні тому

    We threw away fifteen billion dollars of dollars in gold last year? Impressive.

  • @trivmtran
    @trivmtran 20 днів тому

    Lots of other rare earth metal, that currently we are mostly dependent on China for, is thrown out too.

  • @danielporter4493
    @danielporter4493 21 день тому

    Small math problem.
    8.2 billion people on this planet, 15 billion dollars in gold thrown out in a year. So your telling me each person threw out almost 2 billion dollars worth of gold on average in one year?

  • @dancoroian1
    @dancoroian1 21 день тому

    $15 billion *of DOLLARS?* 😲

  • @erowan1389
    @erowan1389 22 дні тому

    Why not use an ultrapowerful magnet that would pull metal through plastics? Then, turn off magnet and drop metal clump into heat source and separate the metals by boiling points.

    • @elektro3000
      @elektro3000 21 день тому +3

      It would pull iron, steel, and maybe some nickel alloys, but it wouldn't pull most of the valuable metals like gold, silver, copper, aluminum, etc.

  • @drfill9210
    @drfill9210 21 день тому +2

    I'm not waiting for a random scientist to crack this. I'm trying it myself. And why wouldn't you? Figure it out and you have 15 billion in gold! I'm already proficient in scooping up the waste in my neighbourhood, removing and reusing the plastic where possible, finding the gold bearing components and concentrating the gold. So far the best I've done is a bar with 5% gold, the rest being mostly copper

  • @Haplo-san
    @Haplo-san 20 днів тому

    Then it is better to not recycle those gold out from e-waste since the process of recylcing requires burning the plastic components and acid treating. That can't be called recycling since it creates more toxicity for the environment. Instead, we should bury them deep under the mountains like used reactor fuels. Also I still hold my Amiga 500, my first cpu Pentium II 300, my old broken motherboards, my GTX 760 and all my phones like Nokia 8310 and Omnia i900. And F whoever throws electronics.

  • @jewishjedi
    @jewishjedi 21 день тому

    One of the characters in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series got rich by having a garbage gold mining company.

  • @ndowroccus4168
    @ndowroccus4168 19 днів тому

    Inevitable

  • @VideoNozoki
    @VideoNozoki 21 день тому +4

    YOUR TITLE IS WRONG: We Threw Away $15 Billion ~~of Dollars~~ in Gold Last Year [X]
    IT SHOULD BE: We Threw Away $15 Billion in Gold Last Year
    ($15 Billion = fifteen billion dollars) in Gold Last Year.
    [You have used "dollars" X2 in this title.] = [ fifteen billion dollars of dollars in Gold Last Year] [X]

  • @jonatanromanowski9519
    @jonatanromanowski9519 21 день тому

    Go Go Sci Show!

  • @nutsandy7183
    @nutsandy7183 21 день тому

    DeleteMe? Sounds like a euthabasia clinic!

  • @marilynlucero9363
    @marilynlucero9363 22 дні тому

    So by rubbing sponge cheese over our mother boards will turn us into scrooge mc ducks, got it.

  • @azwelke2638
    @azwelke2638 15 днів тому

    Gold is not good at conducting electricity. If you take the electronic circuit boards apart, and you refine the pieces with gold, you will find out that is actually silver with a gold plate. Gold is worse conductor than aluminum. Silver is the best conductor in the world by far. They use gold to drive up the prices. Because it looks expensive. But nothing competes with silver when it comes to conducting electricity,

  • @benjaminforman8901
    @benjaminforman8901 21 день тому

    Scientists should just collaborate with sreetips. I'm sure they'd come up with a feasible solution.

  • @AlucardNoir
    @AlucardNoir 21 день тому +1

    Gold might be rare but it's not a "rare-earth metal".

  • @digvijaybambal3444
    @digvijaybambal3444 20 днів тому

    That was Rocky Bhai's deed from KGF ... Stay tuned to Excel Movies channel for the how and why !

  • @xXBLAKGOATXx
    @xXBLAKGOATXx 21 день тому

    I wonder how much of this stuff is broken and not worth repairing

  • @aucontraire1986
    @aucontraire1986 7 днів тому

    …What?!

  • @MadDragon75
    @MadDragon75 21 день тому

    Not me, don't point. 😁 I keep and r♻cycle mine.

  • @applegal3058
    @applegal3058 21 день тому

    My necklace was given to me by my parents years ago. I live with it on and I barely notice it unless someone else notices how pretty it is.
    I'm thankful to live in a safe area. I can wear a thick, shiny gold necklace and I've never had anyone try to take it...
    I knew someone who collected old electronics to remove gold from them.... I haven't thought about it in years, but apparently they were ahead of their time....

  • @lennierofthethirdfaneofchu7286
    @lennierofthethirdfaneofchu7286 20 днів тому

    Gold is not a rare earth metal. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element

  • @DragoniteSpam
    @DragoniteSpam 22 дні тому +357

    This is just one of the reasons that the amount of electronics we throw away (especially here in the US) gets under my skin. I hope that we crack this soon, and also that we as a society kick the habit of tossing stuff that still works when something new comes along.

    • @goosenotmaverick1156
      @goosenotmaverick1156 22 дні тому +19

      Oh goodness don't get me started on those "disposable" vapes...
      I vape and those things piss me off

    • @lolasdm6959
      @lolasdm6959 21 день тому +1

      Well it’s kinda just keeping the house tidy I see no point keeping something I won’t ever use again on the shelf.
      If there is a site I can deliver the thing to I will.

    • @goosenotmaverick1156
      @goosenotmaverick1156 21 день тому +16

      @lolasdm6959 I think you missed the point a bit.
      They were commenting on not creating more things that don't get used/get tossed. The obsession with buying the latest when the one you still have, works.
      It's approaching the same problem but from a different angle I guess

    • @lolasdm6959
      @lolasdm6959 21 день тому +5

      @@goosenotmaverick1156 you know electronics lose performance overtime right? Yeah my old computer works but I am not going to wait 6 minutes for it to turn on. And no vast vast majority of people don’t have the disposable income to buy a new one every year.

    • @Mikey__R
      @Mikey__R 21 день тому +14

      I know this'll make me sound like an incorrigible lefty, but until we fix our economic system, the way we use natural resources to generate economic activity won't change.

  • @coltenhunter2000
    @coltenhunter2000 21 день тому +101

    It’s just hard to recycle.
    My town doesn’t have a spot to recycle ANYTHING. I have to go to the next town to recycle cans, and that town has a “recycle day” once a year, where they collect metal, electronics, and compostables all in one day… you can see how well that works.

    • @jameshoggisthebest
      @jameshoggisthebest 21 день тому +13

      Sounds like the USA

    • @baltimoreluke
      @baltimoreluke 21 день тому +2

      gold is very easy to recycle...there's no technical challenge doing it. the issue is cost. you're not gonna spend $100 to recover $1 worth of gold.

    • @eskimo4130
      @eskimo4130 20 днів тому +7

      wow. In the UK where trucks have to meander narrow lanes, we still have recycling collected every 2 weeks. It's not the best but has improved vastly over the years, still some way to go. Hope the US catches up.

    • @TGears314
      @TGears314 20 днів тому +2

      UK is 244376 km^2 while the USA is 9147420 km^2 which is roughly 37 times larger than the UK.
      A lot of places recycle, quite a lot. But there is significantly more land and people (66 million in the UK vs 333 million in the USA) to deal with and land to cover. It’s logistics

    • @Endless-fire
      @Endless-fire 19 днів тому

      @@TGears314 Australia is massive with even lower population density. We still get it done.
      The USA government pretends it is harder than it is, while being better funded.

  • @grauekatze
    @grauekatze 21 день тому +21

    My ex did a research project a few years back where all the problems with the electric elements boiled down to "just use gold".

  • @davidhall75
    @davidhall75 22 дні тому +148

    That "gold" cube looked really small. ONE KILO? That tiny thing?
    Looked it up. 3.7cm per side. Gold is dense AF.

    • @TheMightyDozen
      @TheMightyDozen 22 дні тому +22

      it's not the densest, but it is pretty close. a 1kg osmium cube would be about 3.54cm per side

    • @700718756
      @700718756 22 дні тому +29

      Yeah. Desity of gold is way higher than even lead, which is probably what most people think of when you mention a dense metal. Lead is 11.3 g/cm^3, Gold is 19.3 g/cm^3.

    • @ilikegames828
      @ilikegames828 22 дні тому +2

      It is about as dense as tungsten which is pretty well known for being very dense.

    • @disorganizedorg
      @disorganizedorg 22 дні тому +5

      @@ilikegames828 Few people have handled more than a few milligrams of Tungsten at once* -- for 'relatable' examples, Iron is probably the one familiar to the most people. I don't think people in general run into much bulk lead nowadays... car battery terminals, maybe. I think lead has been phased out for wheel weights and fishing sinkers. Lead flashing is still sold in the US....
      ---
      *in the form of a filament from an incandescent bulb

    • @SoberOKMoments
      @SoberOKMoments 22 дні тому +12

      Once ounce of gold can be beaten flat enough to cover 1/2 acre of ground. It is truly an amazing metal.

  • @isaac_marcus
    @isaac_marcus 21 день тому +27

    6:00 "Do not try this at home"
    I will just wait for NileRed to do it in his home, thank you

    • @MrKotBonifacy
      @MrKotBonifacy 19 днів тому +1

      Nile Red does his shenanigans in LAB. It's Sreetips who's doing his stuff in his home...
      _How To Recover Gold From Computer Scrap_ - ua-cam.com/video/_ZJpbKqaKF0/v-deo.html
      _Big Batch of Computer Scrap_ - ua-cam.com/video/L91CIorE3xs/v-deo.html

    • @isaac_marcus
      @isaac_marcus 18 днів тому +4

      @@MrKotBonifacy I like the implication that Nile Red doesn't live in his lab /s

    • @MrKotBonifacy
      @MrKotBonifacy 18 днів тому

      @@isaac_marcus That's good. Still, I'm not sure what's the point here...

  • @elektro3000
    @elektro3000 21 день тому +48

    It's not just gold. There are a LOT of valuable metals such as copper and aluminum that get thrown in landfills every day. As a metallurgical engineer, I don't understand why we don't make it clear to the general public that 100% of all metal [unless you contaminate it with radioactivity] is recyclable an infinite number of times, not just in theory but in actual practice. It ALL can get bought up by recyclers who deliver it to foundries that melt it right back down into fresh metal stock for manufacturing new products, in a never-ending cycle. Very little plastic, paper, or glass ever gets recycled into new products after getting picked up from a "recycing bin" but 100% of that steel soup can you recycle today could be part of a bridge girder or a car door or a shovel next year. 100% of that aluminum beer can could be part of an airplane wing.

    • @massimookissed1023
      @massimookissed1023 21 день тому +10

      Try recycling a Pringles tube.
      Polypropylene lid.
      Alu-paper seal.
      Alu-cardboard tube,
      *CRIMPED* onto a steel base.
      They should be banned.

    • @elektro3000
      @elektro3000 21 день тому +1

      @massimookissed1023 Lid goes in the landfill, easy. I wonder if you can tear the alu-cardboard tube off the crimped steel base? Then burn the cardboard off the aluminum.

    • @ronblack7870
      @ronblack7870 21 день тому +3

      @@massimookissed1023 burn it and you get the steel and aluminum plus energy

    • @homer009x
      @homer009x 21 день тому +5

      Aero materials are very tightly controlled and recycled aluminium is never used for airplanes.
      Even the chips from machining isn’t good enough.
      But that aluminium is reused in other industries.

    • @daddymuggle
      @daddymuggle 20 днів тому

      I would think that the waste of rare earths is a bigger problem than the waste of gold, silver, etc.

  • @redneckhippiefreak
    @redneckhippiefreak 22 дні тому +275

    I am a scrapper/recycler in a small city. When I see it, I stop and pick up pretty much anything that has metal in it. I separate it and pile it around my yard. Every 2 months I take all the steel, iron, copper and aluminium for recycling.. I average $6-$700per run. I save up the electronics and slowly go through them pulling cords, capacitors, tabs and various chips in my spare time. Once a year, I take a small pickup truck bed full of all the stripped boards and get around $1300, then I load all the chips and gold plated Tabs in the front seat. Those average $4500-$5k alone..My hobby paid me $9500 last year.....from trash.

    • @jonathanrouse
      @jonathanrouse 22 дні тому +20

      How long does it take you to do all of this?

    • @Eman300man
      @Eman300man 22 дні тому +18

      @@jonathanrousea year he said

    • @dialga4688
      @dialga4688 22 дні тому +8

      Sounds like I might have a new hobby

    • @Foolish188
      @Foolish188 22 дні тому +13

      Betcha your neighbors love you.

    • @caspenbee
      @caspenbee 22 дні тому +4

      Sounds like the man was wrong about recreating Scrooge McDuck! Good on ya! Are you able to do that because of recycling plants in your area, or would a normal city dump pay for all that?

  • @_maxgray
    @_maxgray 17 днів тому +5

    I appreciate that Scishow is willing to discuss why it's hard to come up with reliable numbers rather than just accepting a poorly sourced estimate. It would be easier to write videos that way and I deeply respect Complexly for not taking shortcuts for simplicity.

  • @KomradeMikhail
    @KomradeMikhail 21 день тому +48

    As a vintage computer collector, I must tell you that gold scrappers are the bane of the industry... They destroy rare parts to recover a small fraction of value.

    • @thatcanada
      @thatcanada 21 день тому +19

      Recycler here - I keep as much old and rare boards/parts etc as I can when I break stuff down, but selling it on is troublesome. I list as much as I can for sale -and I don't look for top price - and some stuff would sit for months/years before selling. You can only store so much before it sucks out all profit. So what doesn't sell quickly now - goes to precious metal recyclers. I'd rather see it reused, but still better recycled than landfill.

    • @KomradeMikhail
      @KomradeMikhail 21 день тому +13

      I gave you an upvote, because you state some good points, and you articulate them well...
      But then I remember that I've literally seen parts worth $800+, destroyed by scrappers for $0.80 cents of gold.
      I can only hope it's not a whole industry based on recovering less than 0.1% of the value of items.
      As a common example; Pentium Pro CPU's were a short-lived half-step between Pentium 1 and 2.
      They were a little larger than the average CPU of the 90's era, and so had a little more gold than most.
      They are unreasonably rare and have inflated cost on the retro market now, because of scrappers.
      And that's just consumer PC parts... Don't get me started on Mainframes that should be in museums.

    • @nzoomed
      @nzoomed 20 днів тому +5

      Yeah like the miserable 1 gram of gold in a pentium pro, the chip is worth more than the gold in it!

    • @adamsfusion
      @adamsfusion 18 днів тому +5

      This a ton. I've seen so many rare cards destroyed by scrappers cutting the gold fingers off.

    • @dangehret1349
      @dangehret1349 17 днів тому +3

      Just because it has value to a collector does not mean it's valuable. The same way you cringe at gold being recycled from e-waste (because of a profit incentive apparently?) I could cringe at gold being used for jewellery, but people pay for that too.
      What practical reason would anyone have for keeping those products running? They're inefficient in both power consumption AND processing power so I'm not sure why we should sequester away one of the most important resources for some collectors to hold up

  • @AnthonyMcGowan
    @AnthonyMcGowan 22 дні тому +27

    The Royal Mint in the UK has started recovering Gold and other precious metals from E waste so there must be money to be made.

    • @disorganizedorg
      @disorganizedorg 22 дні тому +7

      Not necessarily. They could recover it at a loss with the intent of preventing environmental damage by amateurs.

    • @lolasdm6959
      @lolasdm6959 21 день тому +1

      Does it break even?

    • @baltimoreluke
      @baltimoreluke 21 день тому +1

      haha, sure. the government is really good at making money.

    • @TheRogueX
      @TheRogueX 20 днів тому

      @@baltimoreluke Good thing governments aren't for-profit businesses and aren't supposed to make money.

    • @spencehewitt
      @spencehewitt 19 днів тому

      If you have enough to process at once you can. It's a question of scale ​@@lolasdm6959

  • @cjsamms
    @cjsamms 21 день тому +5

    There's gold being disposed of in medical waste. Gold dental caps, gold implants during radiation therapy for cancer, etc.
    I got a bunch of radioactive gold seeds in my prostate 😂

  • @wernerviehhauser94
    @wernerviehhauser94 22 дні тому +23

    European recycling laws may be a pain in the butt sometimes, but at least it keeps us from throwing the money down the drain.....

  • @mattdewey9846
    @mattdewey9846 22 дні тому +11

    I have always wondered the exact point at which people will start mining old landfills for metals and other recyclables.

    • @rogerfurneaux1529
      @rogerfurneaux1529 19 днів тому

      Some places must already be doing it! Colossal amounts of glass, which is infinitely recyclable is sitting in landfill, never mind the aluminium. Both of them require much less energy to recycle than to produce from raw materials,

  • @zemoxian
    @zemoxian 22 дні тому +42

    I’ve been toying around with the idea that scavenger robots would eventually be able to sort and break down landfill waste to retrieve discarded materials. The eventual goal would be as close to 100% as possible.
    So like how much of the biological ecosystems are highly recycled, the tech ecosystem would eventually do the same.

    • @TheJabberwockCums
      @TheJabberwockCums 21 день тому +10

      Build Wall-E

    • @headq100
      @headq100 5 днів тому

      dont most major metropolitan areas have recycling and big sorting facilities when they collect the trash?

    • @zemoxian
      @zemoxian 4 дні тому

      @@headq100
      The stuff that gets sorted and recycled is only a small fraction of the trash we produce. Lots of trash gets buried and sealed into landfills. I imagine those things that get dumped and buried could eventually become new natural resources once we learn how to unlock those resources.
      None of that is sorted and a lot of it is currently not recyclable. I think technology will eventually get to the point where those material resources may become accessible again.
      Imagine an ecosystem of mole like robots that can burrow and collect and separate trash of separate types. Perhaps they have teeth capable of grinding it down to particulates then pass those particles through multiple “stomach” like devices that sort and chemically break them down into usable materials. Then they deposit the results in separate bins for further processing into useful materials.
      For example a robot could be interested in primarily digging out and eating electronics. One stomach deposits plastic waste. other stomachs could process metals like gold, platinum, etc. and so on.
      Another type of robot could focus on paper waste and separating and cleaning the paper to make it usable. For instance oil soaked pizza boxes can be recycled into paper so the robot could segregate oiled or waxed paper and either separate contaminants or break it down for some other purpose.

  • @danser_theplayer01
    @danser_theplayer01 22 дні тому +8

    "In 2023, *The World Gold Council* reported that humans have mined..."
    Now that's a line I expected to read from a dystopian romance book.

    • @TacticusPrime
      @TacticusPrime 22 дні тому

      They are just an industry group for gold mine owners. Like the MPAA but for gold. They produced that cringey Idris Elba documentary recently.

    • @UmmerFarooq-wx4yo
      @UmmerFarooq-wx4yo 20 днів тому

      Maybe they include animal mines. Or germ mines

  • @jeremymontgomery9354
    @jeremymontgomery9354 21 день тому +39

    Reclaiming the gold is actually easy, just burn the gold rich circuit boards into ash, then process the ash like any ore. Doing that CLEANLY is the tricky part.

    • @escha_b
      @escha_b 21 день тому +5

      You just answered the question I had thanks.

    • @trishna_6815
      @trishna_6815 21 день тому +6

      Or just use the gold bullion sitting in vaults that obscenely rich people will never be able to spend anyway. Half the gold we mine goes to gold bullion.

    • @alexrogers777
      @alexrogers777 21 день тому

      @@trishna_6815 what waste

    • @Johnlanzer
      @Johnlanzer 20 днів тому

      ​@@trishna_6815 So your solution is stealing from secured vaults rather than collect your own gold through variety of means - like e-waste recycling, small scale mining, gold panning, or buy gold with your savings.
      The last part is how those obscenely rich get their gold.

    • @rogerfurneaux1529
      @rogerfurneaux1529 19 днів тому +1

      @@trishna_6815 And a lot is in India on the wrist and necks (maybe ankles as well) of women showing how rich they (or their husbands) are. I also read somewhere that all the gold ever mined would fit into an Olympic-sized swimming pool (or was it two?). Either way not a lot in volume...

  • @edwardallenthree
    @edwardallenthree 21 день тому +3

    When we have warehouses full of gold, why are we digging it up?

  • @krakhedd
    @krakhedd 21 день тому +6

    62 million metric tonnes of e-waste, but 270,000kg gold - keep in common units to make the comparison less-cerebral - 270 tonnes of gold in 62 million tonnes of e-waste. Which I'm guessing (since I've paused to comment) means that when you discuss the problems, the low-grade yield and difficulties/expenses in processing will be discussed.
    There are people out there who are "mining" e-waste for gold. It's difficult, especially without using mercury, which would make it a relative breeze if not for the toxicity and environmental contamination and other dangers of using it.

  • @patrickosmium733
    @patrickosmium733 21 день тому +2

    They need to just start making the boards easier to recycle.

  • @bartz0rt928
    @bartz0rt928 21 день тому +2

    A shame you didn't mention the fantastic official term for "recyclable resources in unused junk in your attic": *technosphere hibernation*

  • @Tulanir1
    @Tulanir1 22 дні тому +33

    15 billion dollars of dollars?

    • @lundden
      @lundden 22 дні тому

      School!

    • @TheMightyDozen
      @TheMightyDozen 22 дні тому +1

      @@lundden granted, the phrasing in the title is a bit awkward... maybe "$15 billion worth of gold" would have been clearer

    • @mr0mumbles
      @mr0mumbles 22 дні тому

      Yeah i has to re read it a few times 😅

    • @TheMightyDozen
      @TheMightyDozen 22 дні тому

      @@mpotter9944 ok, ok, after some quick googling i saw that in my version there should be no 's, big whoop. still, would be much clearer, point still stands

    • @Quasar0406
      @Quasar0406 21 день тому

      ​@@mpotter9944it's correct, better luck next time.

  • @4RILDIGITAL
    @4RILDIGITAL 20 днів тому +1

    It really emphasizes the irony of our society's wasteful habits, where we throw away literal gold while continuously mining for more. This reframing of waste as a 'gold mine' could potentially revolutionize our approach to recycling and waste management.

  • @LaineyBug2020
    @LaineyBug2020 22 дні тому +5

    There's an artform that consists of deconstructed electronics casing mosaics. So you could mine them for the gold and other metals and still turn the rest into gold instead of trashing the leftovers!

  • @caspenbee
    @caspenbee 22 дні тому +2

    I LOVE the idea of a cheesemaker and a goldminer teaming up, like brewers and bakers did back in the day.

  • @RasielSuarez
    @RasielSuarez 21 день тому +3

    True everything you said except the "the more we recycle the less we have to mine" bit. Mining will continue at maximum output simply because it's a valuable commodity. The rate of recycling has essentially zero effect on the market price.

    • @Roxor128
      @Roxor128 17 днів тому

      Take steel as an example. Pretty-much all of it gets recycled, but what comes out of the foundry is still about 70% new iron. There's just that much demand for it.

  • @AreHan1991
    @AreHan1991 21 день тому +1

    Nitpicking: gold is not a «rare earth metal». (And BTW: not off of those are rare, that’s just a historical name that stuck)

  • @alexanderwuolukka8333
    @alexanderwuolukka8333 21 день тому +1

    And you have people out there panning and mining for gold to try and get rich when they could just recycle. Lol

  • @willthebeast8002
    @willthebeast8002 21 день тому +1

    The burning fields in places like Africa are places where millions of tons of electronics go to get processed for the miniscule amounts of gold. It's horrible...

  • @amosbackstrom5366
    @amosbackstrom5366 21 день тому +9

    I love how the excavator operator at 2:34 is pointlessly spinning his swivle grapple like a new toy

    • @s2kap01
      @s2kap01 21 день тому +3

      I don’t think it’s actually pointless, I think it smoothes out movement that could otherwise shock/jerk the load in the grapple. Centrifugal-lite, sorta.

    • @amosbackstrom5366
      @amosbackstrom5366 21 день тому +4

      @@s2kap01 Could be. I'm a crane operator, primarily using a grapple saw attachment with a similar swivel.
      Looks like he's having fun to me, and I can't say I haven't done the same myself.

    • @s2kap01
      @s2kap01 21 день тому +2

      @@amosbackstrom5366 I respect the expertise for sure 👍 if it’s just for fun it really does make the clip more endearing hahaha

  • @andrewwhite7537
    @andrewwhite7537 21 день тому +1

    Societies need to heavily consider the merits of operating a more circular economic system.

  • @canaan5337
    @canaan5337 20 днів тому +1

    That’s why the town of Filly in the Fallout show was a landfill that was being mined.

  • @alien9279
    @alien9279 21 день тому +1

    What is thay title lol. $15 billion of dollars in gold lol

  • @pugz3230
    @pugz3230 21 день тому +1

    i think you have an extra "of" in the title

  • @jdcandres
    @jdcandres 21 день тому +1

    Elecronics need to be repairable.

  • @bri4940
    @bri4940 21 день тому +1

    @nilered 5:04 new video idea? 😂

  • @totlyepic
    @totlyepic 21 день тому +5

    This title is an insane mess.