![\"Electronic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/355444.jpg\" "\\"Electronic")
<\/p>\nLLANTRISANT, (UK), Aug 5 \u2014 At the heart of Britain\u2019s coin factory, old Bank of England telephones are stripped down and dipped into giant vats to recover a hidden treasure: the gold in their circuits.<\/p>\n
Behind barbed wire and coded security gates at its site near Cardiff in Wales, the Royal Mint \u2013 the state-owned maker of British coins as well as medals \u2013 is turning electronic waste into luxury jewellery.<\/p>\n
The initiative remains unusual in a sector where much electronic waste never reaches proper recycling facilities.<\/p>\n
Opened two years ago, the plant can process around 4,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year, containing \u201cabout 400 kilos of gold\u201d, said the Mint\u2019s development director, Sean Millard.<\/p>\n
Behind him, a largely automated line of chemical vats is off limits to cameras because the process is patented by a Canadian company, Excir.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Electronic components wait to have gold chemically removed at The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, south Wales on June 30, 2026. \u2014 AFP pic<\/p>\n
New process<\/p>\n
Each Bank of England office phone recycled here contains around 30 milligrammes of gold, worth around \u00a33 (RM16.50) at current prices. A modern smartphone contains roughly four pounds\u2019 worth of the metal.<\/p>\n
Gold is prized in electronic circuits because it conducts electricity well and does not corrode.<\/p>\n
But its chemical stability also makes it difficult to recover from electronic waste.<\/p>\n
Unlike many recyclers, which melt electronic waste in bulk, the Royal Mint dismantles devices first.<\/p>\n
Copper, tantalum and even the plastic from circuit boards are sorted and sold to specialist recyclers.<\/p>\n
Gold is traditionally recovered either by smelting at very high temperatures or by using corrosive acid mixtures that generate hazardous waste.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Royal Mint uses a process that dissolves the gold at room temperature.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no external energy input and it can be reused for batch after batch of feedstock,\u201d said Kate Griffiths, a chemical analyst at the Royal Mint.<\/p>\n
She demonstrates the process by placing electronic components in a chemical bath and adding reagents one by one until a fine gold powder forms.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/355445.jpg\" "\\"A")
<\/p>\n
A worker removes silver bullion bars from a string tool at The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, south Wales on June 30, 2026. \u2014 AFP pic<\/p>\n
\u2018Win-win\u2019<\/p>\n
Once refined to improve its purity, the extracted gold is used to make jewellery for the Royal Mint\u2019s \u201c886\u201d brand, which refers to the date the institution was founded.<\/p>\n
The mint also uses recycled silver, some of it extracted from old radios supplied by British hospitals.<\/p>\n
In the jewellery workshop, quieter than the Royal Mint\u2019s coin-pressing halls where he used to work, 63-year-old John Powell carefully polishes a ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to tell you whether I\u2019m working with the recycled or the normal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Worldwide, only 22.3 per cent of electronic waste was properly collected and recycled in 2022, according to a United Nations report.<\/p>\n
Improper recycling can release lead, mercury or plastics into the environment and contribute to climate change, the report warned.<\/p>\n
At the same time, soaring gold prices have made recovering increasingly attractive.<\/p>\n
The metal climbed to a record high of nearly US$5,600 (RM22,900) an ounce at the end of January amid global economic uncertainty, though it has since fallen back to around US$4,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the price of gold is really high, the cost of processing the waste to recover the gold is irrelevant,\u201d making alternative solutions commercially viable, said Jason Hallett, a professor of sustainable chemical technology at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a win-win,\u201d he said, as long as the extraction processes do not send energy consumption or emissions soaring. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LLANTRISANT, (UK), Aug 5 \u2014 At the heart of Britain\u2019s coin factory, old Bank of England telephones are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,63511,53122,294705,294703,190,294706,294704,61],"class_list":["post-846507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cardiff","tag-electronic-waste","tag-gold-recovery","tag-llantrisant","tag-mobile","tag-recycled-jewellery","tag-royal-mint","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}