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Chromobacterium violaceum (C. violaceum), a cyanide generating bacterium has been used to leach out gold and copper from the waste mobile phone printed circuit boards (PCBs) containing ∼34.5% Cu and 0.025% Au in YP (yeast extract and polypeptone with glycine) medium. The bioleaching was carried out in an incubator shaker (150rpm) at 30°C and 15g/L pulp density in the pH range 8–11. Dissolution of gold and copper increased from 7.78% (0.225ppm) to 10.8% (0.46ppm) and 4.9% (419ppm) to 11.4% (879ppm) in 8days with increase in pH from 8 to 11 and 8 to 10 respectively. Supplementing oxygen with 0.004% (v/v) H₂O₂ increased the copper leaching to 24.6% (1743ppm) at pH 10 in 8days whereas improvement in gold leaching was insignificant with the recovery of 11.31% Au at pH 11.0. The waste PCBs can thus be recycled in environmental friendly manner.