Process a tonne of gold ore and you will get 5 grams of pure gold. Process a tonne of cell phones and you’ll get, on average, 150 grams of gold. And there is a bonus, you will also be the proud owner of 100 kilograms of copper, 3 Kg of silver plus other minor metals.

This bonanza has spawned a phenomenon in Japan called urban mining.

Instead of staking a claim in the wilderness Japanese entrepreneurs are mining for discarded electronics and processing them into cash.

This business model is ideal for Japan which has very little natural resources of their own, and with world prices for metals at an all time high there is, well gold in those hills of discarded electronics.

Eco-System, a recycling plant near Tokyo, generally processes up 300 Kg of gold a month. At today’s prices that gold is worth well over 8 million dollars.

The used phones are taken apart by hand and then placed in a chemical bath which dissolves unwanted material leaving precious metals which can then be refined.

Eco-System looks for metals in everything including old computer memory chips, connecting cables and even black printer ink which contains silver and palladium.

The processed ore is sold to jewelers, investors or back to the electronics industry. There is no shortage of customers.

On average Japanese cell phone users change their phones every two or three years. But people don’t get rid of them easily preferring to keep them to protect personal data. Only 10 to 20 percent of old phones are thrown away waiting to be scooped up by the urban miners.

That leaves just over 550 tonnes of old phones available for recycling, and that amount is down substantially from the previous year.

The increased demand for electronic products and the rising cost of precious metals has given rise to recycling businesses. In Japan’s case the need becomes more and more urgent as neighbouring nations re-examine their natural resources export policies.