"Most of the time, the old electronics end up in the garbage, despite holding plenty of reusable material." (Image by AvWijk.)

As the production of gadgets grows, e-waste only increases. Some people see an opportunity to profit the world and themselves by mining the mess. An excerpt from Scientific American:

“Each year, new electronics hit the market and capture consumers’ attention, giving them reason to throw away the old VCR or standard television and engross themselves in state-of-the-art gadgetry.

Most of the time, the old electronics end up in the garbage, despite holding plenty of reusable material. But a push for recycling them has gained ground in recent years through both new state laws and a developing “e-recycling” industry.

Imagine a fleet of miners flocking to landfills and disassembling the dated electronics for their batteries and power supplies. John Shegerian uses the term ‘urban mining’ to describe this process. Shegerian is chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, one of the world’s largest electronic waste recyclers. To him, urban mining is a budding global industry that encompasses essentially anything that’s recyclable.

‘Urban mining goes way beyond electronics,’ he said. ‘It’s everything that goes into a landfill that can be taken out.'”