'We are the garbage collectors of telephony '

'We are the garbage collectors of telephony '

Tech January 9, 2017 08:27

amsterdam - As an African mobile phone dumps, the unit can come to Europe. Not because there is dialed again with, but to be disassembled. Because in each phone are precious metals, such as gold, silver, copper, palladium and aluminum. Which can be re-used. That saves money and protects the environment. ' We are the garbage men of the telecom world, '' says Joost de Kluijver organization Closing the Loop.

The Kluijver buys discarded equipment in Africa. In Europe the metals given a second life. The Kluijver leave soon about 700. 000 dump phones from Zambia, Rwanda and Uganda shipping. Weighing together 25 000 kilos. It will sit between 5 and 10 kilograms of gold, more than 25 kilograms of silver, 3,000 kilograms of copper and about a quarter kilo of palladium. The Kluijver estimates that he receives more than 300 000 euros. Of this, more than half from the previous owners in Africa.

Recycling is unknown in Africa. Of every thirty phones is only one discharged tidy. Hundreds of millions of old phones from landfills each year or burned in the open air. ' A billion of raw materials is lost. It also means that every year a billion euros extracted metals from mines, while it should not have. ''

The Kluijver had to move mountains. ' In Uganda, we have nine months to explain what recycling is, we do not do wrong things. They did not understand what we were doing. '' In Rwanda, working Dutchman recently with a large provider that sends broken phones.

Earlier pulled Closing the Loop 300 all 000 aircraft on Asia and Africa. That collection was sometimes on its African, saw the Kluijver. ' The whole community is doing it together. At church services in Ghana went next to the collection basket a second basket around which people did their old phones. That lay unused in drawers. ''

Closing the Loop is supported by among others ING and TMG. For every phone that they give to their employees, they help to buy a unit in Africa. Closing the Loop additionally participates in an international competition for social enterprises. The top prize is $ 1 million, enough to save hundreds of thousands of discarded gears heap.\n  \n  \n   advertisement

The metals can get into new phones, or other devices such as washing machines. But gold can still have a destination. The Kluijver: ' I leave the wedding of my partner taking the gold from some old phones. ''

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