Rockwell & Royal Mint: Procuring Gold From E-Waste
Electronic waste is among the fastest-growing waste streams globally.
According to UNITAR, a staggering 62 million tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2022, marking an 82% rise since 2010. That amount could fill 1.5 million 40-tonne trucks, enough to form a bumper-to-bumper line around the equator.
E-waste poses serious environmental and health risks, as it contains toxic chemicals like mercury, which can harm the human brain and coordination system.
This is particularly dangerous for children who scavenge through e-waste for money, exposing them to severe health impacts.
In e-waste dumps across less economically developed regions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, children search for valuable metals like silver, gold and copper from discarded devices.
To extract these, they manually dismantle electronics or burn them, inhaling toxic fumes from rubber.
With few other economic opportunities, they take on these risks just to survive.
By 2030, it's estimated that 82 million tonnes of electronic waste will be generated. E-waste is growing five times faster than the recycling of documented e-waste and three times faster than the global population.
Each year, consumers discard laptops, consoles and phones in favour of newer models, worsening this global crisis.
Addressing the issue requires not only improved recycling and recovery infrastructure but also a complete overhaul of how companies handle material procurement, usage and disposal.
Rockwell Automation is making strides by partnering with The Royal Mint to create a more sustainable gold procurement process through advanced technology.
The Royal Mint
The Royal Mint, established in 886 AD, is the UK's official mint and one of the world's oldest institutions of its kind. It produces all of the nation's coins, including commemorative coins, medals and bullion products.
Originally based at the Tower of London, the Mint relocated to Llantrisant, Wales, in 1968.
Renowned for its craftsmanship, innovation and quality, the Royal Mint has expanded into precious metals investment and heritage experiences, preserving the UK's monetary history while becoming a global leader in coinage and precious metal services.
The company’s new Precious Metals Recovery Facility uses Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx Distributed Control System (DCS) to improve the management and control of the gold extraction process.
PlantPAx DCS: Creating new procurement possibilities
PlantPAx DCS is creating new procurement possibilities at The Royal Mint, reducing the company's reliance on mining and creating greater circularity.
The PlantPAx DCS at The Royal Mint’s facility monitors and controls a chemical extraction process that removes gold from printed circuit boards found in discarded laptops and mobile phones.
This extraction technology, is now successfully operational at The Royal Mint’s site in Llantrisant, Wales.
This is a major leap from a couple of years ago, when it was still being trialled in the lab.
Methods to recycle and repurpose the e-waste are being explored by Rockwell and The Royal Mint at the facility, as they both pursue greater circularity.
“The successful collaboration with Rockwell and the deployment of its DCS solution allowed us to demonstrate the technical viability of the technology to operate at scale,” says Tony Baker, Director of Manufacturing Innovation at The Royal Mint.
“This puts us firmly on the road to our 4,000-tonne per annum target and discussions are already well underway with regards to usage of the recovered materials, as are the plans to expand the technology further.”
This process not only offers an alternative procurement method to mining, which has its own host of sustainability and ethical challenges, but also interrupts the existing exploitative e-waste cycle.
If there's no gold, there's nothing to scavenge and if there's nothing to scavenge, there's nothing to burn.
On the one hand this reduces children's exposure to toxic chemicals in these e-waste landfills. On the other it removes a source of income for many.
To address this, collaboration is needed between governments and local communities to create economic opportunity and fight against the growing problem of e-waste.
Procurement has a vital role to play in this process, as so many of our current sustainability challenges are rooted in the demand for specific materials.
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