Many substances are used in the composition of smartphones. Gold, which is among the materials used, continues to be an important metal for the technology industry, together with smartphone manufacturers. Even though gold is not the best conductive metal, it is still one of the preferred metals in smartphone technology due to its good conductivity, easy workability and corrosion resistance. Pins, relays and connectors that send smart signals and stay flexible throughout the life of the device are still being made of gold. Apple uses tons of gold every year Plenty of gold is also used on iPhones, one of the most popular smartphones. There is gold in the cameras, charging coils and motherboards of iPhones. According to the Environmental Responsibility Report announced by Apple in 2019, the gold used in iPhones is less than 0.01 percent of all substances used on the smartphone. To put it more clearly, the amount of gold used in iPhones is about 0.018 grams. When looking at the amount of gold in just one iPhone, the ratio looks pretty small. However, considering that Apple only sold 200 million iPhones in 2019, the amount of gold increases to incredible levels. 200 million iPhone sales show that Apple used more than 3.5 tons of gold in 2019 alone. The importance of recycling gold The gold mining in some countries has become controversial for several years and the search for gold with cyanide brings the recycling of gold to a very important point. Especially in regions where most of the gold mining such as Congo is in the hands of armed groups, the use of gold resources is tried to be prevented by law all over the world. Extracting gold with cyanide, which is one of the two methods of gold mining, has been causing controversy for a long time due to the enormous damage it gives to the environment. The removal of gold in this way by environmentally harmful methods makes the recycling of used gold even more important. Apple is dismantling 200 used iPhones per hour with the robot named Daisy in its warehouse in Texas. Parts of the dismounted iPhones are sent for recycling. That’s why Apple often boasts of using recycled materials on iPhones. In its report released in 2019, Apple said that they tried to use less amount of gold in components such as circuit boards and that gold was recycled due to its value, but it has never disclosed the total amount of gold recycled. Recent questions about the amount of gold used on iPhones and the source of gold were also left unanswered by Apple. Conditions such as seeking gold with cyanide and buying gold from where gold mining and trade are in the hands of armed gangs require technology manufacturers to use gold more evenly. At this point, it would be the most correct approach to explain the source of gold used by important technology manufacturers such as Apple, especially the amount of gold recycling to enlighten the public.
