Recycling: Old cell phones are a gold mine | DW English

Just about all Germans have three of four old mobile telephones lying about in a drawer somewhere. That's more than 72 million cell phones country-wide. But simply throwing them away is what's really wasteful.

The electronic elements of cell phones contain valuable materials such as copper, silver, gold and rare earth metals which can earn their owners good money! Germans can sell their old mobiles on the Internet portal "Wir kaufens". The company that runs it, asgoodas, from Frankfurt-Oder receives more than 6000 cell phones a month. In the US and Britain, such opportunities have existed for a long time. Now the business is gaining momentum in Germany.

[Chuschannel]

People throw away a lot of stuff that they can actually sell and still has value, but they just don't know it.

[olaf]

I have my mother's Samsung which still works from around 1999, no parts have been replaced for it and charger still works. You can call people with it and it works just fine. Pretty amazing to be honest. 

[YoutubeSuxss]

I bet they have a backroom for nokia 3310 because they cannont destroy them. :D

[randyhilarski]

This is great to see! The vast amounts of electronic waste is piling up. I work with these metals everyday and the value just keeps rising. Thanks Deutsche Welle

[jasonhatt]

I'm glad to hear these old phones can have a new life (either as someone else's phone or as raw material then whatever from there)

[GultekinCOSAR]

This is a very good business recycling of the old electronic products. Very Good. And this is a perfect invention.

[stiggyh]

how can it be ok to insult someone for a bad joke ? -why not just thumb it down ?

[borispetrov]

Yeah.... they made out of solid gold )

[omahawarrior]

I started watching DW-TV at a tender age because of their catchy presentations especially in tech stuff. I'm not bored yet. Good stuff

[deborahwood]

love the whole thing of recycling these instead of filling up landfills

[BIPICY]

Seeing all of those mobos getting crushed in a pile... brought a sad, sad tear to my eye :c

[samee]

those sheets of copper are addictive to watch

[robertsmith]

The US still does not do this very much, recycling equals Big Money, too! (Jan. 11, 2018)

[byronmillanicia]

Central America needs companies like this!!! Just in El Salvador 20 years a go!!! Most of the urban areas residents had. Cellphones, imagine a least 1 million of cellphone, dispose every year, most companies would give. The cellphones for Free.

[filipmac]

some people don't know some phones are rare and worth a lot of money

[Bscott]

I have taken so many phones from recycling bins including a Moto z and galaxy s6 edge. And they were going to e waste (they both perfectly work)

[ukrainiansturgeon]

It’s good to see old phones getting to shine again after being inactive for so long. The memory wipe is a bit sad though, like the memory wipes Star Wars droids get to prevent them from gaining independence.

[nathancruz]

3:11 this molten lead is very dangerous.

[MrSamlaren]

Take a look att my Collection of old phones

[npgamersdotnet]

Can you imagine the amount of germs in those piles!? Sick