Recycling Electronic Gadgets for their Rare Earth Metals

Rare Earth Metals There are 17 rare earth metals that make the high-tech gadgets in our lives possible.

Why Recycle Rare Earth Metals? We can save a lot of money by recycling the rare earth metals inside our old gadgets. Mining metals from underground is expensive, but taking apart old gadgets and reusing the metals is easier and cheaper.

Here are 4 of the most important rare earth metals.

Lanthanum About 10 pounds of Lanthanum is used in each battery for hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius.

Europium Europium is an important metal used to create bright white LED lights.

Erbium Erbium is used to make lasers and super-fast fiber optics that speed up the information super-highway.

Neodymium Neodymium is used to make gadgets smaller. It is also used to make tiny magnets that allow large machines to be redesigned into smaller ones.

Cell phones, inkjet cartridges, laptop computers & netbooks, iPads & tablets, iPods & MP3 players, digital SLR cameras and lenses, digital cameras & camcorders, handheld game systems, game consoles (Xbox, Wii, PS3), range finders & sky caddies, GPS devices & radar detectors, ebook readers, mobile hotspots and MiFi devices, 4G USB air cards and graphing calculators (no cords or cables, please). Last year, this fundraised raised over $800 for Green Team efforts and CREF grants

You can recycle your electronic gadgets at your school until March 9th. We can reuse the rare earth metals that are in them and raise money for Council Rock Education Foundation at the same time!

The collection box is in located in the library. Let’s fill it up by March 9th!!

For more information on rare earth metals visit echnology/engineering/news/import ant-rare-earth-elements#slide-4