From E-Waste to Gold: The Royal Mint's Sustainable Revolution in Urban Mining

In a world where e-waste is mounting at an alarming rate, the UK's Royal Mint has found a new way to extract precious metals hidden in laptops and phones, reducing our reliance on raw materials.

The Royal Mint has developed a clean, energy-efficient way to extract 99% of gold from the printed circuit boards found inside discarded laptops and old mobile phones. This innovative technology has been patented and will be used in a new multi-million-pound factory that will be able to process 90 tonnes of circuit boards per week, recovering hundreds of kilograms of gold every year.

The Royal Mint's focus is on doing this sustainably within the UK, using a process that's effective at room temperature while producing a lot less greenhouse gas emissions than smelting. They have also set a goal of generating 70% of the power required to run the entire manufacturing site through renewables such as solar, wind, combined heat, and power plus battery storage.

This is a significant step towards urban mining, a burgeoning trend of recovering precious metals from existing waste products such as circuit boards. With growing awareness about the environmental and social impacts of conventional mining, new green technologies could be scaled up enough to drive the growth of a more circular economy for precious metals.

The Secret Formula To Urban Mining

The Royal Mint's secret chemical formula has the potential to recover other precious metals besides gold, such as palladium, silver, and copper from e-waste, and in the future, these could be used to make lots of other products aside from jewelry.

This innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we deal with e-waste, and it's encouraging to see pioneers like the Royal Mint leading the way towards a more sustainable future.

We need to value the materials that allow green tech to work and keep them in the system for as long as possible. This requires heavy investment in research and development to develop productive, commercial processes. With the Royal Mint's innovative technology, we can reduce our reliance on raw materials and move towards a more sustainable future.

One person's waste can be someone else's raw material, and it's time we start treating it as such.