What’s this, a bunch of scrap? Maybe, yes – but very valuable scrap! This box is full of electronic waste, mostly circuit boards taken from electronic devices such as laptops and computers, that have been donated to us at the Edinburgh Remakery.

The donated items that we can’t repair or refurbish to be used again are instead taken apart and stripped down to their smallest components, components like these circuit boards, many of which can be used for other useful things! These boards, for example, can be shipped to other companies that specialise in precious metal extraction. These companies will then remove the precious metals, such as gold, silver and platinum, from these components and reuse these metals in other ways, such as making them into jewellery or reusing them in new electronic devices.

And this is what we mean when we talk about the “circular economy” – when every part of an item, every scrap, component and material, has its place in the system and can be reused time and again so that as little as possible goes to waste. Electronic waste and precious metals in particular have a large role to play in the circular economy and are unique in that they can be recycled and reused over and over again without it ever changing their properties. Not only that but recycling these precious metals uses less energy and causes less pollution than the extraction of new, rare materials from the earth through mining. A key step in de-carbonising our future!

If you want to pass on your old electronic devices for these to be reused in an environmentally-friendly way, then head over to our ‘Donate Items‘ page for details of what donations we can take.