We faithfully send old TV's and hi-fi's off for recycling, but how much of it actually goes into new products?

Question

We faithfully send old TV's and hi-fi's off for recycling, but how much of it actually goes into new products?

Answer 1

well it may not go into new products as you know them but they can be broken down into various components and base materials and shipped out to various other producers to be melted down or chemically treated to retrieve other precious metals or placed into the processing process

Answer 2

At an electronics manufacturer I used to work for, they would sell populated PCBs (circuit boards with components in) by the tonne to be processed to retrieve gold. IIRC the going rate at the time was around £70 per tonne.

Generally speaking these items are notoriously difficult to recycle, but they have to be stripped down in accordance with the new WEEE regulations.

Answer 3

Most circuit boards in the US is sent to China, where they use very polluting methods to retrieve the gold (they use cyanide), then they sell the gold to others to make jewelry out of it.