Nokia's #sustainablelumia video explains that there's gold in recycled phones

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A video, published on YouTube by Nokia's Sustainability Operations team, highlights, in somewhat off-the-wall manner, the benefits of recycling mobile phones. The video explains that various materials, including gold, can be recovered from the recycling process, but currently only one in ten mobile phones are recycled.  

In the video 43 phones are collected for recyling, which, if recycled, would produce...

  • 820g plastic
  • 602g iron
  • 404g copper
  • 301g aluminium
  • 159g magnesium
  • 341g lithium
  • 1.4g gold

...enough to create 17.5 new phones.

Video description:

How do you recycle gold? 

Old phones contain valuable materials, with gold being one of them. Still, only one out ten phones is ever recycled. If all the materials in phones went back into circulation then less valuable resources would have to be mined. 

Join the discussion on Twitter using #SustainableLumia and read more about Nokia Sustainability at https://nokia.com/people&planet

This film was shot entirely with the Lumia 1020.

The video is part of a wider campaign that is seeking to promotes Nokia's sustainability and environmental initiatives and policies. Nokia is encouraging people to join share their thoughts via the #sustainablelumia Twitter hash tag. 

You may also want to check out an earlier video in this series, which highlighted the fact that the polycarbonate shell of the black Lumia 1520 is made from recycled CDs.