Mobile phones are basically made up of 58% plastic, 25% metals, 16% ceramic and 1% flame retardant materials. Of these components, the most valuable is the metals. The most common valuable metals found in mobile phones include copper, silver, gold, palladium and platinum.

Mobile phones are small and so the amount of metals in them is also small. However, considering the estimate of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that 4.6 billion phone units were in use in 2009 and that around 130 million mobile phones are discarded every year in the United States alone, the quantity and the monetary value of the metals in those mobile phones become significant.

In 2005 alone, 130 million mobile phones retired in the USA yielded a whopping 2,100 metric tonnes of copper. Silver amounted to 46 metric tonnes while gold reached a figure of 3.9 metric tonnes and palladium two metric tonnes. Considering that the data is not even recent and that the statistics speaks only for the United States, it is believed that current world figures are astronomical!

Metal can always be sold and reused, and with amounts reaching metric tonnes in terms of weight, one just cannot imagine the money that is generated from these waste metals. The term “waste” is actually almost a misnomer what with the 2,100 metric tonnes of copper from stored obsolete mobile phones in the US in 2005 alone generating a value of $17 million. For gold and palladium, the figures are $199 million and $63 million respectively.

With this in mind, it is easy to understand why phone companies want your old mobile phone so badly!