Clever solutions to recycling funded

Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announced funding to increase E-waste recycling and avoid it ending up in landfills.

“Auckland company Mint Innovation use chemistry and microbiology processes to recover valuable metals from electronic waste such as mobile phones and computers.  Mint are conducting a technical feasibility study for deployment of the technology in New Zealand using a $80,000 grant from the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF),” Eugenie Sage said.

“Tackling E-waste is one of my key priorities as Associate Environment Minister. This project shows that there are solutions to really tough waste problems.

“Often old electronic goods end up in landfills. This is a huge waste of finite resources such as lithium and copper, and is also a major environmental hazard.

“Heavy metals and toxic chemicals can leach from landfills into soil and waterways, harming aquatic life and posing a threat to human health.”

The Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund was established in 2009 and is funded by a levy of $10 per tonne charged on waste going into landfills.

“As a nation we need to accelerate our transition to a circular economy, where the products we make and use are designed to be reused, recycled or composted, so that waste is designed out of the system.”

For more information visit http://www.mfe.govt.nz/more/funding/waste-minimisation-fund/about-waste-minimisation-fund