In2tec launches world first recovery facility

A British company leading the charge against environmentally destructive throwaway technology has opened a ReCycle facility to meet increasing demand from OEM customers.

The £1.5 million facility is powered using sustainable electronics innovator In2tec’s ReUse and ReCycle technologies, allowing it to undertake component recovery and remanufacturing on behalf of customers.

Emma Armstrong, sustainable electronics ambassador, said: ‘Component recovery at scale needs a different approach at the design and manufacturing phase. Electronic components are often intended for more than 20 years of life, but on average are used for less than four years. More than a billion mobile phones and 300 million laptops are produced annually, and our appetite for all things tech is increasing rapidly. Reusing viable components brings substantial financial and environmental benefits.’

Many companies offer services to desolder high value components, something OEMs have looked to for decades, but it is a costly, low yield process. Stress caused to desoldered components by the reclamation process makes it difficult to guarantee viability, and widely used methods of recovering materials are inefficient, destroy value, and are costly in terms of emissions and energy.

‘The cost heavily outweighs the gain, hence why we now face a significant e-waste problem,’ said Emma. ‘Electronics recycling recovers a fraction of the precious materials used to manufacture them, and the valuable components are lost. Millions of tonnes of ewaste are also recycled informally and unsafely in the developing world each year.’

E-waste is considered hazardous waste as it contains toxic materials and can produce toxic chemicals when recycled inappropriately. Many of these toxic materials are known or suspected to cause harm to human health, and several are included in the 10 chemicals of public health concern, including dioxins, lead and mercury. Inferior recycling of e-waste is a threat to public health and safety.

‘The world needs an effective, scalable solution to e-waste. We need continued advancements in technology for sectors such as healthcare, while reducing the impact on the climate via emissions and destructive mining,’ said Emma. ‘OEMs also need ways to secure their supply chain, mitigate obsolescence, and lower the cost of developing and manufacturing new products.

‘That is exactly what ReUse and ReCycle technologies are built to enable: electronics that can be non destructively ‘unzipped’ so components can be recovered in an unstressed, reusable condition, supporting repair, spares, and second life deployment.’

The versatile technology suits all substrates from FR4, Al, PET, PI, and biomaterials, and can be manufactured at an In2tec facility or licenced by OEMs and CEMs.

‘This is a world first – the only true electronics recycling facility for the recovery and reuse of components,’ added Emma. ‘The production and recovery lines are in place to support our customers and can also be demonstrated for OEMs looking to implement a solution in their own facilities under licence.’