In his book Pitfall, Canadian journalist Christopher Pollon argues that the world could reduce the damage from the mining industry by calling time on gold production. Gold for investment could continue without ever taking it out of the ground, while gold for industrial uses could be provided through recycling.
Nobody has been bold enough to attempt the first part of that equation, but the recycling part is underway. A new plant opened for gold recycling in the UK just this summer, using a brand new process for extracting precious metals from e-waste. This world first facility is a new initiative from the Royal Mint, which is Britain’s oldest company. It was founded in 886 (no, I didn’t forget a digit), and it’s interesting to see a company that trades so successfully on its heritage still capable of being cutting edge.
The Royal Mint’s e-waste plant can process 4,000 tonnes of obsolete circuit boards a year, using a chemical process to ‘mine’ them for gold. It’s done at room temperature, so it doesn’t have the high energy costs that some recycling methods require. It’s a sustainable form of gold recovery, and the Mint is already selling jewellery made from its recycled gold.
Their press releases put gold at the heart of the story because people love the shiny stuff, but it’s not the only metal being recovered at the factory in South Wales. They also extract silver and palladium, tantalum, copper, and a handful of other materials. Even the green wafers that circuit boards are printed onto are useful. They’re ground into glass fibre that can be used in concrete.
Electronic waste is of course a problem in itself – retired electronics are often exported and then burned or dumped overseas, despite global attempts to control the trade. That means that metals recovery from e-waste solves multiple problems at once:
- It eliminates the land damage, energy use, carbon emissions and pollution from mining and processing new ores.
- It deals responsibly with e-waste.
- It secures an affordable and secure supply of gold and other metals for producers.
This is why the circular economy is such an important movement within sustainability.
Now, I wonder if the Royal Mint can be persuaded to try the other innovation I mentioned at the start, and put their name to a gold investment without ever mining the gold?
The Earthbound Report 