Household waste’s silver lining

THERE might be gold in your house. Researchers say mobile phones are a source of gold, with the average household having 22gms of the precious metal in old mobiles.

But, like we do with other valuable commodities, we dump it.

Environmental experts are considering ways of recovering materials from waste. Europe produces 5.2 tonnes of waste per person each year, including 600-700kg per person of domestic waste, and 17kg per person of electrical-goods waste. We are missing a huge opportunity by sending it to landfill, but a €5m Queen’s University Belfast research project, ReNEW, is aiming to recover materials from waste. Valuable chemicals can be extracted from food waste and used to make bioplastics, while the extraction of phosphorus — a key ingredient in fertilisers — from food waste is important due to the depletion of its natural sources and increased mining costs.