There’s gold in them thar’ hills – except not nearly as much as in all the computers, cell phones, and sundry electronic equipment we make and then discard each year.
Indeed, according to the organizers of the first e-Waste Academy, held recently in Accra, Ghana, electronic goods contain 40 to 50 times the amount of gold and precious metals than ores mined from the ground. The difference is that, right now, we’re digging one up and burying or discarding the other. Even as the cost of gold quadrupled over the past decade, most countries – developed or developing – have been slow to see the payoff in urban mining.
