Household waste’s silver lining

THERE might be gold in your house. Researchers say mobile phones are a source of gold, with the average household having 22gms of the precious metal in old mobiles.

But, like we do with other valuable commodities, we dump it.

Environmental experts are considering ways of recovering materials from waste. Europe produces 5.2 tonnes of waste per person each year, including 600-700kg per person of domestic waste, and 17kg per person of electrical-goods waste. We are missing a huge opportunity by sending it to landfill, but a €5m Queen’s University Belfast research project, ReNEW, is aiming to recover materials from waste. Valuable chemicals can be extracted from food waste and used to make bioplastics, while the extraction of phosphorus — a key ingredient in fertilisers — from food waste is important due to the depletion of its natural sources and increased mining costs.

ReNEW (Resource Innovation Network for European Waste), led by the QUESTOR Centre at Queen’s, is a European initiative to bring together researchers, public authorities, and businesses to extract resources from household and industrial waste.

Waste is big business and Dr Elaine Groom, general manager of QUESTOR, said the recovery of such resources was a huge opportunities for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Ireland and Europe. But there are barriers to developing techniques for resource recovery. The best ideas require input and support from many disciplines, including industry, entrepreneurs and scientists. ReNEW brings these disciplines together to develop new technologies that will benefit the environment, the economy and society.

Dr Groom recently led ReNEW events in Germany, working with businesses keen to get ahead in the global market for raw materials derived from waste. At a conference in Dublin, she said: “Waste represents a problem and an opportunity. While many businesses are aware of this, the limited options for processing waste present huge challenges which they cannot overcome by themselves.’’ For more information about ReNEW, visit www.renew-network.eu. For information about QUESTOR, visit www.renew-network.eu.