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DOCUMENT PZSUHE
04549 - [B634868]
Additional Precious metals Can Be Recovered. LCD-77-228;
B-163084. December 28, 1977. 27 pp. + 6 appendices (10 pp.).
Report to Secretary, Department of Defense; Administrator,
General Services Administration; by fred J. Shafer, Director,
Logistics and Communications Div.
Issue Area: Facilities and materiel management (700); Materials:
Conserving Scarce RaM materials (1805).
Contact: Logistics and Communications Div.
Budget Function: National Defense: Department of Defense -
Military (except procurement I. contracts) (051).
Congressional Relevance; House Committee on armed Services;
Senate Committee on kru-d Services.
The Federal Government is a large user of items
containing gold and silver. In fiscal year (FT) 1976, Federal
agencies recovered $20. 2 millioa 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
lar7est recoverer of gold. Silver is used more extensively than
gold; photographic and x-ray film contains silver, and film is
used by all agencies. Findings/Conclusions: The Department of
Defense recovars very little gold and silver frou 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 !Y 1976 could
have yielded an estimated additional $11.6 5.llion. Twenty-six
Federal agencies recovered only 36% of the recoverable silver
from photographic solutions. The other 64%, valued at an
estimated $4 million, yes not recovered because some agencies do
not have recovery programs and others arc recovering less silver
than they should. Federal agencies have not diligently managed
recovery programs. Recommendations: The Secretary of Defense
should: direct the Defense Logistics agency to take the actions
necessary to segregate precious-metal-bearing electronic scrap,
accumulate it at selected locations, and extract the available
gold and silver. The Administrator of the General Services
adsinistz-ation should require all agencies to immediately, and
annually thereafter, survey their components to identify those
using fixer and its estimated silver content. The Administrator
should initially require these agenc~ez to report seniannually
to GSA on specified types of information and should follow up
witih these organizations to determine reasons why the agencies
are not recovering the maximum amount of silver and the actions
planned for doing so. (Author/SV)](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaobaawkd0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)