Gold is not only found in jewellery cases and safes but also in many other everyday appliances – in gold-coated electrical fittings and very fine gold wire or in modern televisions. This precious metal, however, will not be able to be mined for much longer – reserves are expected to last around another 19 years. REMONDIS recovers gold. The highest levels of quality, worldwide. For a secure future. German Qualität.

Huge volumes of stone must be moved to get a single troy ounce of gold – the craters can even be seen from space.

 Significance

Over the last few years, there has been a considerable increase in the price of the precious metal, gold, (24% increase from 2008 to 2009) (USGS 2010). Gold is primarily used to produce jewellery, in the electronics industry, as a means of payment as well as in dental technology (BGR 2007).

 Substitution & Recycling

Global gold mine production in 2009 amounted to 2,350 tonnes. Looking at the current reserves of 47,000 tonnes, gold has a static lifetime of 20 years. Availability of gold has been classified as non-critical due to its high recyclability. For example, 190 tonnes of gold was recovered from old and new scrap in the USA in 2009. This is greater than the consumption requirements accounted for in the USA (USGS 2010).

If the conditions are right, then ore containing just 0.24 grams of gold per tonne is considered to be mineable. This is the equivalent of around 130 tonnes per ounce. The ore found in the most important mines has an average gold content of 3 grams per tonne (approx. 10 tonnes per ounce) (Pohl 2005).

 Substitution & Recycling

 Non-precious metals are often used as the base material for producing electrical and electronic products and jewellery which are then alloyed with gold. Many of these products are being con-tinuously further developed in order to reduce the gold content required whilst maintaining user value. Generally speaking, gold can be substituted with palladium, platinum and silver (USGS 2010). The recyclability of gold is high. Applications, which are still relatively new, will provide a new potential for recycling in the future. The increase in the number of LCD televisions purchased, for example, will mean that over the coming decades there will be millions of LCD TVs discarded by households. Gold is one of the valuable contents found in LCDs for materials recycling (ISI 2009).