Smartphones depleting Earthly metals.
How much do you actually know about your smartphone?
From graphite in the battery to the silicon processor, there are dozens of of metals, minerals and compounds inside every smartphone you carry.
Although present in very small quantity but all of them have to be extracted from our mother Earth.
As we know ,the mining has some real enviornmental consequences.As the mobile market grows so does its impact.So lets look what actually goes into our smartphone.
What does our smartphones have?
Although every model, variation and maker have tightly wrapped trade secrets but we will try to get a general picture.
Generally, a smartphone consist of 43% metals(copper,gold,platinum,silver,tungsten), 38%plastics & 19% ceramics and trace materials.
According to the Minerals Education Coalition, a baby born in the US today will use up 539 lbs of zinc, 903 lbs of lead and 985 lbs of copper during his or her lifetime, not just in phones but in other gadgets and appliances too.
Of the 83 stable and non-radioactive elements in the periodic table, at least 70 can be found in smartphones. According to the best available figures, a total of 62 different types of metals go into the average mobile handset, with what are known as the rare earth metals playing a particularly important role. Of the 17 rare earth metals, 16 are included in phones.
Neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, for example, are three of the rare earth metals: they give your phone the power to vibrate, so smartphones could be made without them - but you'd have to rely on your ringtone. Terbium and dysprosium are also used in tiny quantities in touchscreens to produce the colours of a phone display.
Rare doesn't mean necessarily we are short in supply,but they aren't plentiful, either they are in small reserves or it is time consuming to extract them.
Mining & their impact
Some metals, like iron and aluminium, are available in such large quantities that there's no squeeze on their availability.copper is among the three most-used metals in the world, essential for smartphones, desktop computers.Unfortunately, copper isn't being discovered fast enough to keep up with demand.
For the last year the copper price has been fairly flat as it bubbles under the $3 per pound mark, but experts estimate it needs to get up to $3.50 before there's enough financial incentive to create new mines.
From graphite in the battery to the silicon processor, there are dozens of of metals, minerals and compounds inside every smartphone you carry.
Although present in very small quantity but all of them have to be extracted from our mother Earth.
As we know ,the mining has some real enviornmental consequences.As the mobile market grows so does its impact.So lets look what actually goes into our smartphone.
What does our smartphones have?
Although every model, variation and maker have tightly wrapped trade secrets but we will try to get a general picture.
Generally, a smartphone consist of 43% metals(copper,gold,platinum,silver,tungsten), 38%plastics & 19% ceramics and trace materials.
According to the Minerals Education Coalition, a baby born in the US today will use up 539 lbs of zinc, 903 lbs of lead and 985 lbs of copper during his or her lifetime, not just in phones but in other gadgets and appliances too.
Of the 83 stable and non-radioactive elements in the periodic table, at least 70 can be found in smartphones. According to the best available figures, a total of 62 different types of metals go into the average mobile handset, with what are known as the rare earth metals playing a particularly important role. Of the 17 rare earth metals, 16 are included in phones.
Neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, for example, are three of the rare earth metals: they give your phone the power to vibrate, so smartphones could be made without them - but you'd have to rely on your ringtone. Terbium and dysprosium are also used in tiny quantities in touchscreens to produce the colours of a phone display.
Rare doesn't mean necessarily we are short in supply,but they aren't plentiful, either they are in small reserves or it is time consuming to extract them.
Mining & their impact
Some metals, like iron and aluminium, are available in such large quantities that there's no squeeze on their availability.copper is among the three most-used metals in the world, essential for smartphones, desktop computers.Unfortunately, copper isn't being discovered fast enough to keep up with demand.
For the last year the copper price has been fairly flat as it bubbles under the $3 per pound mark, but experts estimate it needs to get up to $3.50 before there's enough financial incentive to create new mines.
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