250,000 pounds, and what it actually adds up to.
Every recycler’s website has an impact page, and most of them repeat statistics that fall apart the moment you look for a source. We went the other way: every number below comes from EPA, USGS or the American Iron and Steel Institute, and every calculation shows its working. Where a figure is our arithmetic rather than someone’s published result, we say so.
The tonnage
Scrap Circuit has processed at least 250,000 pounds of electronics since 2023 — overwhelmingly desktops, laptops, monitors and the networking and office gear that comes with them.
What 115 tons of CO₂e looks like
Abstract on its own, so here it is in EPA’s own equivalencies.
Show the arithmetic and sources
CO₂e: EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM v16, Exhibit 1-5) gives a factor of −0.90 metric tons CO₂e per short ton of mixed electronics recycled, against +0.02 for landfilling — a net benefit of 0.92. 125 short tons × 0.92 = 115 metric tons CO₂e. We use the conservative mixed-electronics factor; the desktop-specific factor (1.51) would put the figure at 189 tons. EPA WARM v16 →
Homes and cars: EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator puts one home’s annual electricity at 4.798 metric tons CO₂e and one passenger vehicle at 4.29. 115 ÷ 4.798 = 24 homes; 115 ÷ 4.29 = 27 vehicles. EPA equivalencies →
Iron ore, coal, limestone: EPA WARM puts a desktop at 59% ferrous metal by weight, so 125 tons yields about 73.75 tons of steel. The American Iron and Steel Institute states that each ton of steel recycled conserves 2,500 lbs of iron ore, 1,400 lbs of coal and 120 lbs of limestone. AISI →
A circuit board is a better gold mine than a gold mine.
This is the part that surprises people. The concentration of gold in computer circuit boards is not slightly better than ore — it is dozens of times better.
Show the arithmetic and sources
Board grade: measured at 125.3 g/tonne for older computer PCBs and 147.3 g/tonne for newer ones; we use the 136 g/tonne midpoint. Anić Vučinić et al., JSDEWES 2020 →
Ore grade: USGS reports a median grade of 2.0 g/tonne across 88 sediment-hosted (Carlin-type) gold deposits. USGS OFR 2014–1074 →
Ore displaced: at EPA WARM’s 14% circuit-board fraction, 125 short tons of equipment contains roughly 15.9 tonnes of board, holding about 2.2 kg of gold. Recovering that from 2.0 g/tonne ore would require mining roughly 1,080 tonnes — about 1,190 US tons — before counting the waste rock moved to reach it, which at typical stripping ratios multiplies the total several times over.
Where the 125 tons went
Composition by weight, using EPA WARM’s desktop breakdown. Nothing here is landfilled by us.
Three things we deliberately don’t claim
If you have read other e-waste pages, you have seen these. We checked them and they don’t hold up, so they are not on this site.
“Only 12.5% of e-waste is recycled”
No primary source exists. EPA’s own figure is 38.5% for the US; the UN’s is 22.3% globally. The 12.5% number circulates between blogs citing each other.
“2% of landfill, 70% of toxic waste”
The most repeated unsupportable statistic in the industry. We could not trace it to any government or peer-reviewed source.
“About a gram of gold per PC”
Roughly six times the real figure. Measured board grades put it near 0.15 g for a typical desktop.
Add your load to the pile.
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