Comments for Japan's Landfills Abound with Gold, Silver and Platinum at http://www.ecogeek.org , comment 1 to 12 out of 12 comments http://www.ecogeek.org Tue, 21 May 2013 18:34:12 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-20856 Actually you can seperate the precious metals by metling points even if there is plasitc or other metals mixed in. I know this as I do this all day long & built my own set up. All electronics are force fed into a motified ore grinding machine w/ a certain # of screens in different mesh. Then the ground electronics are run through a high powered magnet to remove all of the metals that are magnetic. Then I add what is left over to a crucible in my furnace & heat to over 6,000 degrees. The plastics burn away & the fatal fumes are sucked up through this modified vacume into a series of filter to filter the air. Then I take the melted mass out of the crucible & cool it & break off the flux w/ the hammer. Flux removes all impurities from precious metals. I do this process about 3x. While it may seem time comsuming to some, please realize that I am running this process x10 at a time. Finally what left over I run it through a process called amalgamation. This 100% seperates the precious metals (gold, silver, platinum) from the byproducts of other metals like copper, aluminum, etc. Amalgamation is you using mercury to trap the precious metals. When I am done with that I add the mercury soaked metal to a large cuple & heat at 7,500 degrees. This melts all of the mercury into the cuple (cuples absorb impurities) & what is left over is a mix of 24k gold, .999 silver & platinum. There is a little more to this process that I admit I have not added, but you knew how to fully do it, why would any need me. :-) All in all after an 8hr work day I yield about 3-4 POUNDS of gold, not including all of the other metals. - Rev. William R. Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:20:35 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18972 Too bad prices aren't high enough to make it worthwhile right now. But soon they will be. Once the mines in South Africa are tapped out urban mining will take over. - Rothschild_Is_For_McCain Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:28:27 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18911 Definitely a gold mine left untapped. It's going to be a tough job for whoever decides to go for it. - Krazd Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:54:06 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18905 I say we get all the homeless, pay them through thanksgiving dinners and have them separate it all for us normy's - Shabam Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:38:36 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18903 Let's just wait until we invent nano-assemblers to salvage these landfills and not worry about the raw numbers in the meantime. - anony Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:13:21 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18899 When in doubt, follow the model Americans have laid out getting people to do things... $$$ - Tan The Man Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:45:59 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18802 Umicore have been extracting precious metals from post-consumer electronics waste for a good while now. I don't know how they're doing it, but that at least shows that it can in fact be done. - Bram Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:55:16 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18800 Actually, no. A lot of metals are not feromagnetic, they are not attracted by magnetism. Gold, silver and copper, for instance, will not be pulled by a magnet. Iron, tin and steel will. Also, sorting by melting point will not work as there is generally other material clinging to the metals. There is gold in your cell phone, but it is surounded by plastic. - EV Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:41:59 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18790 Can't they send all the trash through a giant spreader and then have a giant magnet, to gather all of the metals. Then alot of metals have different melting temps so they could sort this way. - mynameisme Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:21:41 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18781 What about that turkey offal thermal condensor that turns things into oil/and or basic nutrients? If they were to process that stuff into one of those plants, all the organic matter and plastic would become oil, and anything remaining would condense into usable material. - Jacob Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:37:45 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18762 I've read about garbage mining before. It's a wonderful concept - though, I imagine, not a very pleasant job! When you consider the gigantic amount of garbage dumped in landfills around the world, there's a tremendous opportunity for reclaiming resources. Especially from years ago, before recycling kicked in. If enterprising companies could find a cost-effective way of digging it out, this could prove to be a major ecological development which could replemish many of the world's dwindling resources. It's amazing to think that the garbage previous generations threw out as completely worthless could not only spark a multi-billion dollar global industry, but could actually save the world... (Okay, so maybe not on it's own, but it would've sounded a cool way to end this comment!) Steve N. Lee author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com and suspense thriller 'What if...?' - Steve N. Lee Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:34:58 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/recycling/2128#comment-18758 To motivate someone to do something. When in doubt, always appeal to greed. 8) - DennisSC Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:48:33 +0100