The Sydney factory turning old laptops and phones into gold

The Mint Innovation factory in Smithfield is a world leader in “urban mining”, where instead of digging in the ground, it mines bags of circuit boards saved from old computers, mobile phones, gaming consoles and washing machines.

“The processes we use is alike to any other mine – this is our raw materials,” chief technology officer Johann Havenga told 9News.

The factory spies tiny glitters of gold, copper and other precious metals which are ripe for the taking in the unused items.

The team processes the old technology by putting the PC boards through the conveyor belt, where a double-stage hammer mill breaks it down to the “size of sand granules”.

They then use chemicals and natural biomass to melt the metals down and it’s eventually baked into a gold-laden ash.

“It doesn’t really look like it, but this is gold. This is gold. And we are as proud of this gold as any other gold,” Havenga said.

The process is a low-carbon alternative to mining and also ensures no by-product goes to waste.

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The green gold is sold onto refiners to be used in anything from new electronics to medical devices and jewellery.

Even the gold medals for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 were made from discarded laptops and phones.

Once refined, Havenga said the quality could go up to 99.999 per cent.

While natural reserves run out, the United Nations estimates that 7 per cent of the world’s gold could be hidden in electronic waste – where there’s 100 times more gold in a tonne than a tonne of gold ore.

“The worst part is you send it to landfill, eventually the metals leach into the groundwater, on the other side you’re destroying the earth to get new gold,” Havenga said.

Just 20 per cent of electronic waste is actually recycled, but the Sydney facility processes 3000 tonnes of circuit boards a year.

Unfortunately, the gold in a laptop isn’t enough to make any cash but Aussies can drop it off at their free, local recycling centre to give it a new lease on life.