Scientists digging in Swiss sewage find millions in gold and silver

[Hydrogen]

Even gold diggers might want to avoid this one.

An estimated 95 pounds of gold rush through Switzerland’s sewage pipes and its waste stations each year, according to a study by scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, also known as Eawag.

That’s about $1.8 million dollars of sewage-covered gold.

They also estimated that about 6,600 pounds of silver flows through those pipes, which is about $1.7 million, according to Bloomberg.

The study, commissioned by the Federal Office for the Environment, tested sewage in 64 wastewater treatment plants across the small country. While officials have long known precious metals get mixed in with sewage, they’ve never known exactly how much.

Eawag described it in a statement as “the first systematic, quantitative assessment.”

The precious metal most likely came from the country’s gold-refining plants and its watchmaking industry, slowly building up over a year. Switzerland is one of the world’s biggest gold-refining centers, with 70 percent of the world’s gold passing through its refineries each year, Bloomberg reported.

Gold prospectors shouldn’t get too excited. Eawag warned that the concentration of gold in most places wasn’t high enough to financially justify mining the toxic sludge.

But Ticino, an Italian-speaking region in the south of Switzerland, contains enough gold refineries releasing trace amounts of the metal into sewage pipes to make recovery there “potentially worthwhile,” according to the statement by Eawag.

Sewers in the United States might contain gold as well.

Researchers from Arizona State University published a similar study in 2015, finding that a U.S. city of 1 million people flushes up to $13 million worth of precious metals into the sewage system each year. Roughly $2.3 million of that is gold and silver.

Some countries work to retrieve the precious metals sloshing around under their streets. One wastewater treatment plant in Japan incinerates its sludge, extracting two pounds of gold from every 1,200 pounds of ash — an amount that Reuters said was “a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world’s best mines.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/13/scientists-digging-in-swiss-sewage-find-millions-in-gold-and-silver/

...

A little something to break up the monotony on GPU/ASIC mining. People ask, what do we do when there are no bitcoins left to mine? Here is one potential alternative. For those who are into precious metals, this could be interesting. I'm not enthusiastic about gold or silver but reading this makes even me feel tempted to find a way to mine the millions of free precious metals in sewers. Perhaps robot labor would make it viable?

[xoof]

The precious metal most likely came from the country’s gold-refining plants and its watchmaking industry, slowly building up over a year. Switzerland is one of the world’s biggest gold-refining centers, with 70 percent of the world’s gold passing through its refineries each year, Bloomberg reported.

Ah fine, so then this probably works only in Switzerland.

[davis196]

This is just an interesting article about some new technology,nothing more.
It won`t produce enough gold and silver worldwide to increase the supply and lower the gold and silver prices.
It would be really interesting ,if scientists create a new and safe technology for digging under the oceans and find gold and silver.Anyway,this won`t happen during the next 100 years.

[player514]

Even gold diggers might want to avoid this one.

An estimated 95 pounds of gold rush through Switzerland’s sewage pipes and its waste stations each year, according to a study by scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, also known as Eawag.

That’s about $1.8 million dollars of sewage-covered gold.

They also estimated that about 6,600 pounds of silver flows through those pipes, which is about $1.7 million, according to Bloomberg.

The study, commissioned by the Federal Office for the Environment, tested sewage in 64 wastewater treatment plants across the small country. While officials have long known precious metals get mixed in with sewage, they’ve never known exactly how much.

Eawag described it in a statement as “the first systematic, quantitative assessment.”

The precious metal most likely came from the country’s gold-refining plants and its watchmaking industry, slowly building up over a year. Switzerland is one of the world’s biggest gold-refining centers, with 70 percent of the world’s gold passing through its refineries each year, Bloomberg reported.

Gold prospectors shouldn’t get too excited. Eawag warned that the concentration of gold in most places wasn’t high enough to financially justify mining the toxic sludge.

But Ticino, an Italian-speaking region in the south of Switzerland, contains enough gold refineries releasing trace amounts of the metal into sewage pipes to make recovery there “potentially worthwhile,” according to the statement by Eawag.

Sewers in the United States might contain gold as well.

Researchers from Arizona State University published a similar study in 2015, finding that a U.S. city of 1 million people flushes up to $13 million worth of precious metals into the sewage system each year. Roughly $2.3 million of that is gold and silver.

Some countries work to retrieve the precious metals sloshing around under their streets. One wastewater treatment plant in Japan incinerates its sludge, extracting two pounds of gold from every 1,200 pounds of ash — an amount that Reuters said was “a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world’s best mines.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/13/scientists-digging-in-swiss-sewage-find-millions-in-gold-and-silver/

...

A little something to break up the monotony on GPU/ASIC mining. People ask, what do we do when there are no bitcoins left to mine? Here is one potential alternative. For those who are into precious metals, this could be interesting. I'm not enthusiastic about gold or silver but reading this makes even me feel tempted to find a way to mine the millions of free precious metals in sewers. Perhaps robot labor would make it viable?

As of now, it seems like humans can do a good job in extracting the precious metals themselves. However, if this whole process was to be automated, there would be a huge legal battle among everyone who thinks they rightfully own the chance to mine these findings. There would be a pretty big rush to gain parts of the breakdown of the entire metals and it would be a pretty big conundrum.

[Undermood]

Swiss is the biggest watch manufacturer in the world so this makes sense. Its a good idea to digg gold in pipes. Good luck swiss people

[BelieveInBitcoin]

If only gold and silver were magnetic I'd be there with a magnet on a length of string!

[dothebeats]

Modern gold rush?

It's not really surprising to learn that there are some gold found within Switzerland, but what's surprising is that some of it were laying beneath it, in this case, their sewage system. A large portion of the world's gold passes through the country to be made as jewelries and watches, so that somehow explains those things.

If only gold and silver were magnetic I'd be there with a magnet on a length of string!

If gold is fused with some iron or nickel, then you'd be lucky to find them with that magnet.

[Cicada1033]

Thanks for sharing this article I had a god laught  

In Germany we say "aus Scheiße Gold machen" which literally translates to "make money out of shit". I guess this fits just right to this article.

[Mometaskers]

Bitcoins mined using computers, gold mined out of shit, LOL.

But seriously though, now that they have an idea on how much precious metals are being wasted, maybe they can do something. Like how factories install stuff up the chimneys to prevent soot from coming out, maybe they can process their water first before sending it down the sewers. That way they won't need to dig through shit.

[BitcoinFrik]

Isn't that a little amount of gold? I mean, who would bother to excavate 1.8 million gold? Unless it's 1.800.000.000?

[BarbusseH]

A special industrial installation should be designed, manufactured, obtained permits. For such small volumes, this is unprofitable. And manually is not very productive (and unpleasant).