The answer may surprise you

Today, everybody you see seems to be staring at a mobile phone. About 15 years ago, every adult you saw was poking away at a Blackberry and every kid you saw was listening to music on an iPad or other portable music player.

According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, a million cellphones contain about 75 pounds of gold, 33 pounds of palladium . . . and 770 pounds of silver. That might seem like a lot of precious metal to you, or it might seem like a small amount when you consider that you have to recycle a million phones to access it. But here’s another statistic that makes it seem like it might not be that difficult to get your hands on a million phones:

...When You Recycle These Gold-Plated Items

While you’re poking around at the antiques mall you notice a pair of gold-plated earrings sitting in a tray. You could snag them for less than $10.00, but why bother? They are going to contain only maybe 50 cents worth of gold at best. So you walk on by and keep looking for more interesting items.

“Precious metals and rare earth element are the same thing, right?”
 Let’s clear up this misconception right away. No, precious metals and rare earths are not the same. In today’s post, we’ll find out what the difference is

Someone called one of our expert consultants at 800-426-2344 last week and asked, “Is lithium a precious metal?” He had a lot of old printed-circuit boards that had batteries attached to them and was wondering if he would get paid for the lithium that they contained if he sent them in to be recycled.

Yes, it is true, according to data compiled by 911Metallurgist.com. In fact, a ton of used iPhones contains 324 times more gold than a ton of gold ore does. A ton of iPhones also contains 13 times more copper than a ton of copper ore does, and 6.5 times more silver than a ton of silver ore does. So the message seems to be that as demand for precious metals remains high, recycling phones is a practice that is not about to go away.