Circular E-Waste Recovery: Circulus & Reformation Metals

“Working with The Royal Mint, supporting their vision and supplying printed circuit boards for their process, completely aligns with our values at Circulus – to progress the transition to a circular economy.”  — Gerry Docherty, Managing Director, Circulus

A circular route for recovering value from e-waste

Circulus is one of the UK’s leading circular economy businesses, helping organisations maximise the value of unwanted electrical and electronic equipment through reuse, refurbishment and recycling. 

Operating from Scotland, Circulus processes around 3,000 tonnes of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) each year and repairs or refurbishes 32,000 electronic components, extending product life while supporting a more circular economy. 

Innovation sits at the heart of the business, driven by Managing Director Gerry Docherty’s passion for resource recovery and sustainable innovation, which has helped establish Circulus and is now a leading force in electronic waste management and materials recovery. 

As a certified B Corp, Circulus combines environmental responsibility with social impact, creating sustainable employment opportunities while helping customers recover value from electronic waste and reduce their environmental footprint. 

Challenges 

Electronic waste is one of the world’s fastest-growing waste streams, containing valuable precious and critical metals including gold, silver, palladium and copper. 

Traditional recovery methods often rely on shredding and smelting, which can limit opportunities to recover materials in the most resource-efficient way. As demand for critical materials continues to increase, Circulus recognised the importance of supporting innovative recovery technologies capable of extracting greater value from end-of-life electronics and minimising environmental impact. 

As part of its ongoing commitment to exploring new technologies and partnerships, Circulus sought opportunities to support more innovative approaches to e-waste and precious metals recovery. 

Why Circulus chose The Royal Mint Reformation Metals 

Circulus’ circular economy experience led to the company joining a research project with  The Royal Mint Reformation Metals and Canadian clean-tech company Excir in September 2024. Supported by Innovate UK and the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), this international collaborative project focuses on developing and commercialising circular solutions and resilient supply chains for critical minerals. 

How the partnership works 

As the project’s supply-chain partner, Circulus supplies high-quality printed circuit boards (PCBs) recovered from end-of-life electronic equipment recycled at its Scottish facility.  

These PCBs, which contain valuable precious metals, are then processed at The Royal Mint’s facility in South Wales using Excir’s patented clean-tech chemistry to recover precious metals. The recovered metals are returned to circulation through The Royal Mint’s sustainable precious metals programme, including recovered gold used in its 886 by the Royal Mint luxury jewellery collection. 

To date, Circulus has supplied approximately 20 tonnes of PCBs to The Royal Mint Reformation Metals. 

By bringing together expertise from UK and Canada, the partnership is helping commercialise innovative resource recovery technologies and demonstrating how international collaboration can strengthen the circular economy. 

“It has given us a route for our PCBs that is truly circular, and the process of working with the team at The Royal Mint has been consistently positive and seamless operationally and has developed further advances in materials recovery that align to the UK Critical Minerals Strategy.”  — Gerry Docherty, Managing Director, Circulus 

Why this partnership works 

Circulus attributes the success of the collaboration to shared ambitions around innovation, sustainability and advancing circular solutions for recovering critical materials from electronic waste. 

• Supporting Innovation & Efficient Resource Recovery: The partnership combines expertise from the recycling, clean-tech and precious metals sectors to support a more efficient and sustainable approach to recovering precious metals from electronic waste. 

• Maximising Resource Value: By supplying high-quality printed circuit boards into The Royal Mint’s recovery process, this helps maximise the value recovered from end-of-life electronics while supporting the circular economy. 

• Supporting the UK Critical Minerals Strategy: The collaboration supports the development of more resilient and sustainable supply chains for critical materials while reducing dependence on newly mined materials. 

Outcomes & looking ahead 

The partnership between Circulus, The Royal Mint and Excir demonstrates the power of international collaboration to unlock greater value from electronic waste.  

This international approach has also received recognition on the global stage. At the G7 Summit in 2025, the Government of Canada recognised The Royal Mint Reformation Metals’ partnership with Canadian clean-tech innovator Excir as an example of cross-country collaboration advancing global critical minerals resilience. 

For Circulus, the initiative represents an important step towards unlocking greater value from WEEE while supporting the development of sustainable supply chains and reducing dependence on finite natural resources. As demand for critical materials continues to grow, partnerships such as this will play a vital role in building a more circular and resource-efficient future.

Discover how your business can play a part in redefining precious-metal recovery, book a call.