How Panasonic Makes Products Out of Used Home Appliances

The operation has recovered 1.1 tons of gold, 33 tons of silver, and 8,100 tons of copper.

Transcript

Last week, Panasonic and Mitsubishi Materials provided an update on a joint effort more than ten years in the making to operate and expand a product-material-product (PMP) loop. Since 2011, the collaboration has strived to reuse gold, silver, and copper recovered from waste circuit boards, primarily from old Panasonic home appliances. So far, it has been a smashing success.

According to the companies, the PMP loop is the industry's first to achieve consistent resource recycling. As of December 2024, the partners have recovered 1.1 tons of gold, 33 tons of silver, and 8,100 tons of copper.

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First, Panasonic ET Solutions, a Panasonic subsidiary, removes iron and aluminum from the boards and sells the materials—they're unwanted for crushing and smelting, anyway. The waste circuit board processing is outsourced to partner companies that process materials collected from home appliance recycling plants and repair sites across Japan. The boards are then delivered to Mitsubishi Materials. 

Mitsubishi Materials extracts gold, silver, and copper from the refined waste printed circuit boards through smelting and returns the metal materials to Panasonic ET. The recovered gold, silver, and copper are turned into gold plating solutions, copper wires, and other materials the Panasonic Group uses for manufacturing.

By using the copper recovered by the loop instead of smelting copper ores, Panasonic says it has reduced some 33,000 tons of CO2. 

The effort comes amidst global measures to use metal resources more efficiently and protect the environment. According to Panasonic, recycling-oriented manufacturing is critical, especially in Japan, where the self-sufficiency rate of natural resources is low. 

Japan is working towards a more sustainable recycling-oriented society, which includes plans to double the processed amount of metal recycling raw materials by 2031.

Now, Mitsubishi and Panasonic are working to expand end-to-end resource recycling management. Panasonic hopes to find additional partners to make new loops, or circular economies, for other materials.

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