Electronics Recycling in a Circular Economy Project Shortlisted for Business Green Innovation Award

The Business Green Leaders Awards, which celebrate and highlight pioneering work across the green economy, have shortlisted the Electronics Recycling in a Circular Economy (ERICE) project for their 'Innovation of the Year' award. This celebrates projects and organisations that have demonstrated genuine innovation in the pursuit of improved environmental performance over the past year.

ERICE is the follow-on to the ReUSE (Recyclable, Unzippable Sustainable Electronics) project, in which the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), together with partners In2Tec Ltd and Gwent Electronic Materials Ltd, developed and tested a revolutionary printed circuit board (PCB) design whose components could be easily removed and recycled through simply immersing the device in hot water. This technology has been patented.

ERICE follows on from this prototype stage to develop the technology and prove its commercial viability by creating a fully functional device using the 'waste' material of another PCB.

Following a record-breaking year for the Business Green awards in terms of the number of entries received, ERICE will be up against nine other innovations when the winner is announced at an awards ceremony in July.