DEScycle opens demonstration plant for critical-materials recovery from e-waste in U.K.

DEScycle has opened its first demonstration plant at the Wilton Centre in Teesside, U.K.—the company’s first operational deployment of its distributed metals-processing platform—to recover critical materials from e-waste. The facility aims to strengthen the U.K.’s domestic critical-minerals supply chain and aligns with the government’s strategy that targets recycling to meet 20% of demand.

What impact could distributed e-waste recovery have on the U.K.’s critical-minerals security, and what barriers (technology, permitting, collection, economics) need to be addressed to scale it?