By Jocelyn Timperley / Source: BusinessGreen

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A new EU-funded project is to explore the commercial opportunities for recovering critical raw materials (CRMs) and precious metals from electronic waste.

The CRM Recovery project will study processes for recovering raw materials and precious metals including gold, silver and platinum group metals from everyday electronic products that have reached the end of their life. Led by waste advisory charity WRAP, the project will take place over three and a half years and aims to increase the recovery from waste electronics of several different CRMs by five per cent.

“We’re delighted to lead this project which will find effective routes for collecting and recovering valuable materials from electrical and electronic products,” said Dr Liz Goodwin OBE, chief-executive of WRAP. “I look forward to seeing how these new insights inform the bigger picture, demonstrating the economic and environmental benefits of making better use of resources across Europe.”

Research by WRAP has shown nearly 40 per cent of electrical products go to landfill, despite many of them containing CRMs which are facing growing supply risks.

CRM Recovery aims to explore viable commercial models for recovering and reprocessing these materials, reducing the need to mine raw materials.

The projects will assess how different collection methods, such as kerbside collections and retailer take-back schemes, could be linked to efficient recycling processes in order to show how recoving materials can deliver economic value.

“CRM Recovery will provide both waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) take-back organisations and recycling operations best practice methods to improve future value-added by increasing the recovery of certain critical raw materials,” said Dr Sven Grieger, manager of WEEE Operations at the European Advanced Recycling Network (EARN), a collaborator on the project.

Four countries – Germany, Italy, Turkey and the UK – will participate in the project, which the partnership said will allow cross-comparison of how best practices work in different markets, allowing a European-wide framework to be developed. The project is funded by €2.1m European Commission LIFE grant, and its findings will be presented to the European Commission as policy recommendations and proposals for infrastructure development.

The project is a partnership between WRAP, EARN, the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), Wuppertal Institute in Germany, European Recycling Platform UK (ERP UK).

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