Additional Precious Metals Can Be Recovered

The federal government is a large user of items containing gold and silver. In fiscal year (FY) 1976, federal agencies recovered $20.2 million in gold and silver from materials used in day-to-day operations. Additional gold and silver estimated at $15.6 million could have been recovered. Demonstration projects have shown that the Department of Defense (DOD) can identify, segregate, and sort gold and silver items in electronic scrap and reclaim them economically. DOD is the largest recoverer of gold. Silver is used more extensively than gold; photographic and x-ray film contains silver, and film is used by all agencies.

DOD recovers very little gold and silver from electronic scrap even though it has demonstrated that recovery is economically feasible. Instead, it continues to study the feasibility of such recovery and is selling items with gold and silver at scrap prices. Recovery from scrap in FY 1976 could have yielded an estimated additional $11.6 million. Twenty-six federal agencies recovered only 36 percent of the recoverable silver from photographic solutions. The other 64 percent, valued at an estimated $4 million, was not recovered because some agencies do not have recovery programs and others are recovering less silver than they should. Federal agencies have not diligently managed recovery programs.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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