A magic pill for e-waste's ills?

Pan Songlai claims the VCD he sells online for 580 yuan ($91) is worth far more than its weight in gold.

The retailer in Zhejiang province's Shaoxing city says his 80-minute video shows advanced nontoxic methods for extracting gold and silver from e-waste that enable industry workers to spend 2,000 yuan on a reagent to earn 20,000 yuan before taxes from a ton of e-waste. It also provides water treatment instructions.

"The VCD is worth the money," he insists. "It's a nontoxic, cheap and simple process that's ideal for small workshops."

Most e-waste recyclers rely on the heavily polluting "cyanide method", which poisons water systems, according to the Shandong Province Experimental Institute of Geological Sciences.

Pan says the technique he has promoted through the VCD's sales since 2006 reveals hydrometallurgical recovery technology that enables the leaching of gold and silver from e-waste as a substitute to the deadly sodium cyanide method.

He claims it recovers 97 percent of gold and 94 percent of silver within 120 minutes.

"But most people who call about the VCD don't buy it," he says.

Pan demands advance payment and provides no after-sales service.

He says he sells fewer than 10 discs a month, most of which are shipped to Guangdong, Jiangsu and Fujian provinces.

E-waste processors exposed to sodium cyanide can suffer serious health problems, especially respiratory damage.

But the institute says the leaching method Pan markets could be a money-maker and lifesaver.

Time will tell if the technique is merely fools' gold or not.