In the drawers of Milanese people, almost 2 million unused smartphones: they are worth 19 million euros

Milan, 1 July 2025 - Over 1.8 million smartphones are lying unused in the drawers of Milanese people and more than 600,000 could be reconditioned and put back on the market : this is what emerges from the new research by Refurbed, a platform that deals with reconditioned electronic products, from the perspective of the circular economy, with the guarantee of reuse .

This dormant digital treasure represents a value of almost 19 million euros in the city of Milan alone and, if we also consider the rare metals contained within the devices, such as gold, cobalt and palladium, we are talking about a material heritage that could contribute in a concrete way to reducing Europe's dependence on third countries for the supply of critical resources.

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In Milan, unused raw materials worth €4.6 million are stored in decommissioned devices. According to the survey, the value of metals contained in decommissioned and unused smartphones in the city of Milan alone is around €4,631,815 million (based on raw material prices in February 2025). In fact, even if each individual smartphone contains only a few grams of valuable raw materials, the enormous quantity of decommissioned devices in the EU translates into considerable quantities overall. These include numerous critical raw materials (Critical Raw Materials), such as rare earths, and conflict raw materials (Conflict Materials), such as tin, tungsten and gold.

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