Ever heard of the ruthenium rush, the bismuth bonanza or the indium stampede? Demand for cellphones and flat-screen TVs is depleting global supplies of a host of uncommon metals.
Indium is built into a billion consumer devices a year, for instance in phone displays, and prices have soared. Some estimates say reserves could run out within five years. Bismuth, used in lead-free solder, has doubled in price in two years, while the price of ruthenium, used in resistors and disc drives, has risen sevenfold in a year.
To meet demand, tech firms must mine the growing mountains of electronic waste to recover the materials, says Rüdiger Kühr of the United Nations University in Tokyo, which this week launched a global e-waste initiative. "The recycling of trace metals is essential to ongoing production," he says.
Via New Scientist
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