Royal Mint to recycle gold found in mobiles and laptops to reduce e-waste

[sixgun]

Royal Mint to recycle gold found in mobiles and laptops to reduce e-waste

This interesting - pointing to much higher metal prices perhaps.

https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2021-10-20/royal-mint-to-recycle-gold-found-in-mobiles-and-laptops-to-reduce-e-waste

[chrisdobb]

Maybe lower gold prices, more gold in circulation surely means a lower price?

[Zhorro]

Well, we have already had the 2021 silver penny made from recycled silver, so maybe a 2022 sovereign made from recycled gold?  Of course it would have to have the wind turbine privy mark to show it was from recycled gold.

I suppose the other way to cut down on the use of precious metals would be to release fewer coins!

[sovereignsteve]

You have to laugh at these reports; "....will use technology to retrieve gold..." I thought they'd just wave a magic wand.

I'm sure they won't miss the opportunity to strike a special gold coin made out of green, recycled gold for a hefty premium. They will probably call it Welsh gold.

[paulmerton]

I don't think it will affect things much. Umicore have been doing that for ages already.

https://pmm.umicore.com/en/sustainability/

[paulmerton]

1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

You have to laugh at these reports; "....will use technology to retrieve gold..." I thought they'd just wave a magic wand.

I'm sure they won't miss the opportunity to strike a special gold coin made out of green, recycled gold for a hefty premium. They will probably call it Welsh gold.

 

[sovereignsteve]

Yes I'd forgotten that episode😁

[pricha]

9 hours ago, chrisdobb said:

Maybe lower gold prices, more gold in circulation surely means a lower price?

The process of retrieving gold from laptops is time consuming and expensive so i doubt it will mean lower gold prices . 

[Spark268]

"The Royal Mint plans to introduce a world-first technology to the UK to recycle gold from electronic waste. Fewer than one fifth of electronic waste ends up being recycled, estimates show. The mint's chief executive Anne Jessopp said the technology would help to "make a genuine impact on one of the world's greatest environmental challenges." The Royal Mint has signed an agreement with Canadian start-up Excir to recover 99% and more of gold from devices' circuit boards. It said the chemistry selectively targets and extracts precious metals from circuit boards in seconds."

 

This is a potential gold mine for the royal mint.  E-waste contains around 250g/tonne of gold/material versus around 15g/t for your run of the mill mine. If the technology works, this avoids the need to dig deep underground holes in far-flung, geopolitically unstable places, and use prodigious amounts of energy and cyanide  (which is the Umicore method). If other rare earths can be captured then great!.

Ethical gold would also capture a huge premium, and there have been no Tier-1 PGM discoveries for decades now, in an industry where low supply elasticity means mines take decades to come online from first discovery. If this technology does not work then that's still positive for PGM prices.

Avg annual smartphone sales are 375mln, if 70% of these are recycled then that would recover 3-12.5metric tonnes of gold per year, which is equivalent to x1-4 global annual mine production. Its also fascinating to see how this demand to date has had little price impact, perhaps phones are recycled already either by re-use or gold recovery through the old dirty method.

For those of you who have followed David Morgan and tolerate his know-it-all attitude, you will have no doubt heard of Mineworx/Enviroleach who are also Canadian. they have been touting a similar technology for years now but nothing has materialised, despite some fancy M&A and multiple share offerings. This company looks more legit (https://www.excir.com/) - the Exec/non Exec board members do have verifiable track records with VC funding/management. I don't think its listed ATM unfortunately from an investment POV..

Edited October 20, 2021 by Spark268
fixed lazy typing & added stats

[HillWalkerDundee]

On the radio this morning, Royal Mint have signed an agreement with a Canadian start up to recover gold, silver and other precious metals from mobile phones and other electrical equipment. Honest, guvnor, there isn't a PM shortage.

[Coolsmp]

Surely its only a good thing recycling these old phones, etc.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58978512.amp

[paulmerton]

13 hours ago, HillWalkerDundee said:

On the radio this morning, Royal Mint have signed an agreement with a Canadian start up to recover gold, silver and other precious metals from mobile phones and other electrical equipment. Honest, guvnor, there isn't a PM shortage.

I don't think it suggests anything like there being a shortage.

I think it's simply the case that if the cost of recovering a kilogram of gold from electrical equipment costs less than a kilogram of gold, then it's a no brainer - and presumably it does work out cheaper, because if it did cost more, they wouldn't be doing it! Umicore has already demonstrated it's a viable model.

[LawrenceChard]

On 20/10/2021 at 10:04, sixgun said:

Royal Mint to recycle gold found in mobiles and laptops to reduce e-waste

This interesting - pointing to much higher metal prices perhaps.

https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2021-10-20/royal-mint-to-recycle-gold-found-in-mobiles-and-laptops-to-reduce-e-waste

 

Having visited the Royal Mint (factory, and museum, rather than the Visitor Centre / Gift Shop), on a number of occasions, I can tell you that visitors have to go through a security process. This involves showing ID to the police, depositing any coins, cameras, mobile phones, etc. in a locker with the police. It is also supposed to include any coins, and similar items in your vehicle if it is driven through to the delivery and collection area. As it happens, on more than one occasion, there were coins in my car which I did not lug out and hand over. I think on one occasion I might have had a few hundred kilos of old pennies, plus some high value collectable. In hindsight, it would have been interesting to have unloaded all of these. They might have run out of space in the security lockers.

Now I'm worried that next time I go through their security process, will I get my mobile back, or just  lump of molten metal and plastic? 

😎

[paulmerton]

They've published a short video about it now.

 

[Spark268]

6 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

Now I'm worried that next time I go through their security process, will I get my mobile back, or just  lump of molten metal and plastic? 

😎

and whether you will have to face a cacophony of ring tones the next time you do an inventory check of the latest sovs

 

[CollectorNo1]

Great!!!! Now we will have coins not only with milkspots but with sim cards poking out of the coins..🙄🙄😄

[LawrenceChard]

19 minutes ago, CollectorNo1 said:

Great!!!! Now we will have coins not only with milkspots but with sim cards poking out of the coins..🙄🙄😄

Yes, instead of skimmed milk, we will have simmed milk.

[dicker]

28 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Yes, instead of skimmed milk, we will have simmed milk.

@LawrenceChard You missed your vocation in life. You should have been a writer of jokes in Christmas crackers!  
 

All the best to you

Dicker