Mining for urban gold in Wales

There’s gold in Wales and not only deep within the no longer viable mines of Carmarthenshire, Anglesey and Snowdonia.

In 2022, the Royal Mint in Llantrisant began building a new factory capable of processing an annual 4,000 tons retrieved from the circuit boards of the UK’S discarded phones, laptops and televisions.

“What we’re doing here is urban mining,” Sustainability chief, Inga Doak, said.

Gold is used on circuit boards owing to its high conductivity and because it does not corrode, unlike silver or copper.  An average smartphone contains around 0.034 grammes of gold and the precious metal from this and other modern must-have devices, is extracted in two phases.

First the Royal Mint treats the circuit boards at a plant that separates components and metals, with those containing gold sent on to the new Llantrisant factory.

Here the gold is recovered using a patented method created by Excir, a Canadian clean technology firm. This is less energy-intensive and does not require the exceptionally high temperatures used in existing processes.

The initiative is expected to produce hundreds of kilos of gold each year for the 866 jewellery range – 866 refers to the year when Royal Mint was founded – which launched in 2022.

The pieces are sold online and at the Royal Mint’s boutique in Burlington Arcade in London’s Mayfair.