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Last week, Panasonic and Mitsubishi Materials
provided an update on a joint effort more than
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10 years in the making to operate and expand a
product material product or PMP loop.
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Since 2011, the collaboration has strived to
reuse gold,
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silver and copper recovered from waste circuit
boards, primarily from old Panasonic home
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appliances.
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So far, It’s been a smashing success.
According to the companies,
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the PMP loop is the industry’s first to achieve
consistent resource recycling.
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As of December 2024, the partners have
recovered 1.1 tons of gold,
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33 tons of silver, and 8100 tons of copper.
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First, Panasonic ET Solutions, a Panasonic
subsidiary, removes iron and aluminum from the
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boards and sells the materials.
They’re unwanted for crushing and smelting
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anyway.
The waste circuit.
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Board processing is outsourced to partner
companies that process materials collected from
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home appliance recycling plants and repair
sites across Japan.
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The boards are then delivered to Mitsubishi
Materials.
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Mitsubishi Materials extracts gold, silver and
copper from the refined waste printed circuit
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boards through smelting and returns the metal
materials to Panasonic ET.
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The recovered gold, silver and copper are
turned into gold plating solutions,
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copper wires, and other materials the Panasonic
Group uses for manufacturing.
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Just by using the copper recovered by the loop
instead of smelting copper ores,
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Panasonic says it has reduced some 33,000 tons
of CO2.
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The effort comes amidst global.
Measures to use metal resources more
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efficiently and protect the environment.
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According to Panasonic, recycling oriented
manufacturing is critical,
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especially in Japan, where the self-sufficiency
rate of natural resources is low.
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Japan is working towards a more sustainable
recycling oriented society,
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which includes plans to double.
The processed amount of metal recycling raw
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materials by 2031.
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Now Mitsubishi and Panasonic are working to
expand end to end resource recycling management.
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Panasonic hopes to find additional partners to
make new loops or circular economies for other
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materials.
I’m David Manti.
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This is manufacturing now.