Wrong numbers

Vital rare metals removed and Scrap for JT readers ?!

And, 99% (if not all) of them still contained personal data when they hit the recyclers. I read an article about mobile phones and CDs becoming the new "What the hell do we do with them" waste issue. They are right up with car tires on the scale how to get rid of them. This article also fails to mention that is not financially viable to recycle mobile phones. The article I read also stated that users of mobile phones should be paying a hefty levy to cover the cost of recovering these rare earth metals.

I wonder how many of them still work perfectly well?

Nice start... :)

What a bunch of scrap.

Can you hear me now?

I would reckon that nearly all of them worked fine and they all contained data.

Seen a report on a conmpany in Saitama(some time back) that recovers metals(gold, etc) from old electronics and they were literally "minting" it with an output of several gold bars in a fairly short/regular time.

So there is a profit to be made from recycling and the companies that do it earn well.

Pity is that much of our garbage gets send to China, etc where people die extracting those materials only to profit some fat-ass, lazy business-man.

Also remember asking a friend(some yrs back) that designed appliances about their internal electronics and he said they often use x286, x386 chips from PC's new or old. Guess stil pretty similar now.

Also having done a stint programming firmware(not a high-point of my career) most of the "computer" chips don't actually end up in Computers.

Potential Nightmare: "Whoops! I dropped my phone into this pile of...phones!"

When you get a new phone the cell phone company asks you if you want to get rid of your old one. If you ask them to throw it away they will delete all the info in the phone and show you that it's been deleted before throwing it away. If you just toss it in the trash can ... well of course all the data is still there.

This article also fails to mention that is not financially viable to recycle mobile phones

Disillusioned, This is just a "picture of the day" and not a news article. Gee! JT is simply trying to lighten up your Monday. I hope your weekend wasn't that bad lol!

bicultural.

That is just a delete, easily undone. Even a low-level wipe/format of the memory don't fully erase it.

Now if they would hit the device with an EMPG, etc you might get a full erase.

Rare earth recycling.

Good luck Japan!

Recycling of rare earth minerals is much better than throwing them on dump sites as rare earth is money.

@ Zenny11

Now if they would hit the device with an EMPG, etc you might get a full erase

Not environmentally friendly but I use a hammer :-)

Was going to mention throwing it into the food-processor for a bit. ;)

Or recycling for Gold and Silver? yeh they get gold and silver too. Do not discard your Cell Phone,computers or any device containing personal data. Always DELETE or remove disk or Mini sd card etc.

but the real question: "Will it blend?" Do a YouTube search and you will see...

This is just Japan, how many in the entire world are being discarded every day. What is the world going to do about this mess???

I think he holds an au Win w21s Phone. I used to have one of those

Proffesor - Just making a point.

@cactusjack.

It blended well enough on discovery channel and was captured on highspeed camera. ;)

one time in akihabara i saw a guy in a small shop all he does is removing precious metals from old phones, good business

Imagine how many breakups have been initiated though these...

lol @ above comment!

I was going to suggest the picture shows the number of keitais a high-school student gets through in a year.

Was going to mention throwing it into the food-processor for a bit. ;)

Brilliant. Next recycle your food processor.

OMG, my pink keitai that I recycled! There it is in this photo! "Hello there, little Pinkie-chan? I miss you. Please forgive me for deserting you for that iPhone. I'm so sorry... gomen ne. Gambare. Take care. Love you." <click>

The article I read also stated that users of mobile phones should be paying a hefty levy to cover the cost of recovering these rare earth metals.

Nonsense. If someone needs to foot the bill it is the providers who are making a fortune. And actually some companies have figured out how to retrieve the valuable metals and make a profit too.

And who would go to the trouble of trying to recover data from discarded cell phones? Sounds laughable.

The picture shows a picture, yes. We take, create and destroy at the same time, and are baffled at our great work.

I don't know about other companies but Docomo has a whole section dedicated to to permanently clearing data from phones that you bring them for disposal they will even tell you that just deleting and doing a reset is not enough so please before throwing it away bring it back to them and they will guaranty nothing is left and then send it for proper recycling.

And the no profit rumor is just that a rumor I have known people in the business and they have made a lot of money doing it, now more then ever seeing that with the latest technologies then can mix all the different plastics into a grinder and even that can be reused easily, just the Gold, silver and Pt make it profitable now ad the rare earth minerals, other metals and plastics and you just about printing money.

Here in my ward there is one place that does Phone and computer recycling and the plastic pellets they make are sold directly to a local plastic container and parts maker that supplies ￥100 shops and automobile makers, the owner of this container company is a neighbor and says that without the cheaper recycle plastics he would have been out of business a long time ago.

Also, good place to mine information saved in the phone. I hope people knows to at least do a master reset before sending their phones there.