Environmental Problems Associated With Using Tin Gold And Copper For The Production Of Smartphones: An Analysis

Over the past 20 years, cellphones have developed at a remarkable pace. At first the production was carefree. People gave little thought to the wellbeing of the environment and its sustainability. In time came new technologies and new demands for mobility and functionality. This meant greater demand for telephones and advanced electronic circuits. In 2015 alone, there was sold almost 1.3 billion smartphones [14]. In all advanced electronic circuits, toxins and hazardous substance are utilized. [1] A smartphone is composed from over 1000 different materials [4].

This article takes a closer look at environmental problems associated with using tin, gold and copper for the production of smartphones.

Tin is the main component of all solder points on a smartphone printed circuit boards. Most of the tin is produced in China and Indonesia. About one third of all tin production in the world comes from
In 2015 there was sold almost 1.3 billion smartphones [14]. This sums up to about 39 metric tons of pure gold. In all of history, there has been mined only 161,000 tons of gold. This is barely enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. More than half of the total amount has been extracted in the past 50 years. The world's richest deposits are fast being depleted and new discoveries are rare. In the mining process mercury is commonly used to extract gold from rock in a process called amalgamation. “Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form” [18]. The use of mercury is a problem, because much of it is released into the air and soil. The Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM), emits an estimated annual average of 1,000 metric tons of inorganic mercury [19]. Mercury is highly toxic to humans, and UNIDO estimates that one-third of all mercury released into the environment by humans comes from artisanal (small-scale) gold mining