Mining Gold From Computers: Can You Make Money?

Every time you throw away or recycle a cell phone, computer or any piece of electronics you’re throwing away gold. Gold is an efficient conductor of electricity and does not corrode, therefore it is used in virtually every piece of electronics. You can extract the gold using products you likely already have in your home, but is mining gold from computers profitable?

With gold selling for over $1500 per troy ounce, old electronics may seem like an untapped gold mine. You may suddenly have visions of gaining fortunes from that unused pile of computers in the corner of your basement. Unfortunately, the following facts suggest mining gold from computers may not be worth the trouble.

Amount Of Material Required

You may need a ton of circuit boards. Literally. For every ton (2000 pounds) of desktop PC circuit boards, one could extract approximately 5 troy ounces of gold yielding $7500 of revenue.

Storage Needed

One may need a space to store the vast amount of electronic material needed to make the venture profitable. Unless you have such a space, renting one would cut into your profits.

Dangerous

The process to extract gold from electronics gives off toxic fumes you don’t want anyone to inhale. Additionally, hazardous waste is produced that can be dangerous to your health if not handled correctly.

Time Consuming

Finding enough material to mine a significant amount of gold will take a lot of time and effort. Additionally, the time needed to extract the gold from the amount of electronics will take the average person months or even years.

Waste Disposal

Once you’ve extracted the gold, you’ll have hazardous waste and electronic parts you have to dispose of. This is not only inconvenient, but will also likely reduce profitability.

Legal Implications

If the correct disposal procedures are not followed for disposal of the hazardous waste, you could find yourself with fines, jail time or both.

While every piece of electronics contains some amount of gold, for the reasons listed above mining gold from computers would take an enormous amount of time and energy to make any amount of money. It may be a fun science experiment, but that’s about it.

How about you, Clever Friends, have you ever tried extracting gold from electronics?

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Bonus: if you’re looking for ways to earn extra money that are a bit easier to implement consider checking out Dollar Sanity’s article on side hustles. Its got some good ideas.