[/floatr]Yomiuri: Dowa to extract metals from used cell phones
Dowa Holdings, whose group includes a major nonferrous metal company, is planning to import used mobile phones from Southeast Asia to extract nonferrous metals such as gold and copper from them for recycling...The Dowa group also plans to dispose of harmful substances being used in such phones, they said. The plan will be a joint project with the Geneva-based Secretariat of the Basel Convention, which is aimed at controlling transfers of hazardous waste between nations and its disposal...The Dowa group has the only smelter in Asia capable of extracting individual metals from ores containing several metals such as copper, gold and lead...Concerned with the spread of harmful substances from Southeast Asia, the secretariat asked Dowa, through the Environment Ministry, to help collect resources...Imported mobile phones will be crushed and then put into a furnace to extract nonferrous metals such as gold, copper and lead. Arsenic, a hazardous material that will be separated, will be buried in the smelter's final disposal area...more...
I'd like to know a little more about that "final disposal area" for the arsenic.
