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Brief TAKE-Italy's Iren opens low-carbon vital product recycling plant

Italy's Iren stated on Friday it inaugurated a plant to recover crucial raw materials from electronic waste with a new technology that produces three time less carbon dioxide emissions than conventional processes.

WHY IT is essential

The Italian utility stated the plant will use a mechanical disassembly procedure and specifically developed hydrometallurgical treatment, efficient in drawing out non-noble metals to isolate and thus recuperate rare-earth elements and important basic materials.

This is among the first low-impact plants in Europe to recuperate critical basic materials, Iren said in a declaration.

BY THE NUMBERS

The brand-new plant is able to process more than 300 tonnes of circuit boards a year. It can recuperate some 200 kg of important metals every year, consisting of gold, palladium and silver, also as 57 metric lots of copper a year, Iren stated at an occasion near the Italian city of Arezzo, where the factory lies.

CONTEXT

Previously this year, the European Union launched a method to make certain the bloc can access basic materials it needs for the green shift, partly by raising its recycling capacity.

Under its Crucial Raw Products Act (CRMA) the EU targets that by 2030 the bloc will mine 10% of its requirements for tactical minerals, process 40%, and satisfy 25% of demand from recycling.

EU efforts to prevent foreign reliance have actually heightened because the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which highlighted the risks of being reliant on a single nation for essential materials.

KEY ESTIMATES

Italy is a nation with low raw materials ... our greatest mine is waste, Italy's Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said at the event to inaugurate the plant.??

We will recuperate from computers, mobile phones and other waste valuable and uncommon raw materials that are crucial for our market, Chairman Luca Dal Fabbro said.

(source: Reuters)