Using a proprietary chemical process pioneered by Canadian firm Excir, England's The Royal Mint has begun mining old circuit boards from electronic devices for gold and converting what's harvested into attractive, if pricey, jewelry.
The Royal Mint has been making coins and other items out of precious metals for over 1,000 years. Now that fewer and fewer of us are using actual coins, however, the institution finds itself needing to turn elsewhere to remain relevant. Enter the landscape of e-waste, of which the UK is the second-largest producer per capita in the world, according to The Royal Mint.
The United Nation says that 2022 saw a record amount of e-waste being produced. The world threw away 62 million tonnes of phones, computers, TVs and other devices full of a wide range of valuable and also toxic materials. The organization says that the e-waste figure is set to climb another 32% by 2030, when we'll be tossing away 82 million tonnes of electronics annually.
The Royal Mint adds that less than 20% of all e-waste is currently recycled and that about 7% of all the gold in the world is currently locked inside electronic devices, mostly attached to circuit boards. It also says that about US$57 billion in total precious metals can currently be found in e-waste.
Seeing an opportunity to not only reduce this waste, but also turn it into something desirable – and make a little money in the process – The Royal Mint has opened a 3,700 square meter factory in South Wales that has the ability to process 4,000 tonnes of printed circuit boards (PCBs) from electronic devices per year.
The factory uses a process developed by Canadian clean-tech company Excir in which circuit boards are broken apart and soaked in a proprietary eco-friendly chemical that frees the gold from the boards, all at room temperature. The suspended gold particles are then sifted out and reused. According to Excir, the process recovers more than 99% of the gold from e-waste in a matter of seconds.
The company's method sits beside another e-waste gold-recovery process announced earlier this year in which $50 worth of gold can be harvested for every dollar spent.
In this case, The Royal Mint is turning the gold it mines from the PCBs into a jewelry collection called 886. The collection includes two pendants, a bracelet and a signet ring ranging in price from £1,525 to £2,995 (about $1,937-3,805).
If that's too pricey but you still want to support the idea of recycling metal from e-waste, the company also offers a range of silver jewelry made from metal that has been recovered from x-ray films, which starts at £225 (about $285).
“The Royal Mint is transforming for the future, and the opening of our Precious Metals Recovery factory marks a pivotal step in our journey," said Anne Jessopp, chief executive at The Royal Mint. “We are not only preserving finite precious metals for future generations, but we are also preserving the expert craftsmanship The Royal Mint is famous for by creating new jobs and reskilling opportunities for our employees. We have ambitious plans, and I am proud that we are safeguarding The Royal Mint for another 1,100 years.”
The following video gives you a closer look at and more information about The Royal Mint's new recycling facility.
Source: The Royal Mint
