‘Mining’ Old Pcs Pays Off Company Recovers Gold From Junked Computers

Before you toss that dated computer, think twice - it may be worth more than you imagined.

Electronic Recovery Specialists has found its fortune in other people’s garbage. The Chicago-based company buys and breaks down old computers - hacking them apart in some cases - for the gold and other precious metals they contain.

The result: $7 million in revenues are expected in 1996.

Founded by Davis Gilbert in 1979, the company recovers the gold-bearing bits and pieces, and then sells them to refiners.

“We’re kind of like a miner who takes out the ore,” said Gilbert. “It’s not cost-effective to refine a whole mountain, so they get out the ore to reduce the amount they have to refine. We’re doing the same thing. We’re basically 21st Century gold miners.”

Eleven employees dismantle junked machines and sort their innards, filling bins and barrels with shining circuit boards, detached connector pins and gold foil.

Inch-long switches are pigeon-holed by make and model for recycling or gold recovery. Aluminum disc drives are stacked in one corner; in another, plastic computer shells are heaped halfway to the ceiling.

The company is a medium-large player among the 70-odd firms that recover gold from electronics. Gilbert processes 10 tons of junked computers per week from sources as diverse as modem-maker U.S. Robotics Inc. and other corporations, municipalities and blood banks.

“There’s not a single company in the world I couldn’t walk into and show ‘em where the gold is,” Gilbert said.

Gold, an excellent conductor of electricity, has been used in computers and other electronics products for decades. But recovering it wasn’t profitable in the United States until the 1970s, when, freed from federal price control, gold’s value rocketed from $35 an ounce to more than $800.

“All of a sudden, all the old printed circuit boards and electronic equipment sitting around became the richest gold mine in the world,” said John Lutley, president of the Gold Institute, an international trade group.

Gold currently trades near $400 an ounce. Gilbert buys material for about 10 cents a pound and extracts 10 cents to 50 cents worth of gold per pound, depending on the material.

A personal computer weighing 34 pounds contains anywhere from a quarter-gram to a gram of gold, worth $3 to $13, he said.

Electronics also contain silver, palladium, copper, aluminum, steel, plastic and glass, all of it worth money, Gilbert said.