UK recycling alliance to focus on critical raw materials recovery

By Anil Mathews (ScrapMonster Author)
October 20, 2015 08:13:13 AM
The $2.3 million project headed by UK’s Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP) aims to promote recovery of critical raw materials from disposed electronics.UK recycling alliance to focus on critical raw materials recovery
CANTERBURY (Scrap Monster): A recycling partnership headed by UK’s Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP) will explore commercial possibilities of recovery of critical raw materials (CRM) from discarded electronics.

The $2.3 million project titled CRM Closed Loop Recovery is being funded by EU-LIFE Programme. The project is launched by WRAP in collaboration with the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), Wuppertal Institute, the European Recycling Platform (ERP) and the European Advanced Recycling Network (EARN). The first of its kind project aims to recover CRM and precious metals including gold, silver and PGM.

According to studies conducted by WRAP, nearly 40% of the disposed electronics end up in landfills. Efficient recovery of critical raw metals and precious metals will reduce the dependence on mined raw materials. In fact, electronics items contain traces of these metals in large quantities, which itself could create new streams of revenues. The project aims to increase the recovery of a range of CRMs from consumer electronics and small household appliances by 5% over the period of next 3.5 years.

The project will link collection and dismantling of discarded electronics and recovery of valuable metals from these devices. It aims to co-ordinate various collection methods such as curbside collections, retailer take-back programs and postal returns. It will also explore the techniques to safely dismantle the collected electronics and methods to recover and return the precious material components to market. The project aims to make recommendations towards cost-effective recovery of CRMs.

The findings of the study will be forwarded to the European Commission (EC) for further policy action. The participating countries include the UK, Germany, Italy and Turkey.