Canadian startup Excir claims to have found a way to extract and recycle approximately 99% of all the gold inside the circuit boards of old cell phones which are no longer used and become electronic waste.
According to a report produced by the British BBC network, Excir was able to impress and strike a deal with British coin maker Royal Mint Limited to develop and improve the technology.
From what informed the Canadian startup, it’s possible thanks to a chemical treatment that extracts the precious metal from the electronics of the mobile phone in disuse in seconds.
The company now hopes that with sufficient funding and development of this new technology, it will even be able to become able to do the same with other materials such as silver, copper, and palladium.
Royal Mint Limited Managing Director Anne Jessopp called the potential of this new technology “huge”. Company growth director Sean Millard also said it was “revolutionary”.
Currently, only about a fifth of all electronic waste ends up being recycled. With the help of the discovery of Excir, that number could grow to be much higher as the technology seems to provide easier and faster results.
The British coinmaker further estimated that junk mail produced only in 2021 is expected to exceed the 57 million tonne mark. If nothing is done to try to mitigate this, that number could reach 73 million tonnes in 2030.
And you, did you find the initiative interesting? Do you think it can add value to devices that no longer work? Tell us in the comments below!
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