The British Royal Mint opened a £17 million facility in Llantrisant, Wales, using Canada-based Excir technology to extract precious metals like gold from electronic waste.
The plant can process up to 4,000 tons of e-waste annually, recovering over 99% of gold in seconds at room temperature.
The initiative aims to promote sustainable practices, reduce reliance on traditional mining, create job opportunities, and offer a sustainable solution to the growing environmental challenge of e-waste.
The Royal Mint is turning the extracted gold into a jewelry collection called 886 and offering silver jewelry made from metal recovered from x-ray films.
Rare and limited edition coins from The Royal Mint, such as the undated 20p "mule" coin from 2008, Kew Gardens 50p, and special edition Olympic 50p coins, have become valuable among collectors, with some fetching high prices at auctions and on secondary markets like eBay.
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq
Sources: CBS News, BBC, The Guardian, Sky News, The Sun, Waste360, PC Gamer, Notiulti, Evertiq, ProactiveInvestors, The Telegraph, Business Matters, New Atlas, Open Access Government, Business Live, Your Local Guardian.