Australian e-waste recycling venture Sircel has secured a $5 million investment from Kilara Capital, helping it retrieve precious materials from discarded technology and tackle the pernicious problem of old solar panels.
E-waste refers to the extractable and recyclable materials contained in discarded electronics like televisions, computers, and digital business infrastructure.
The federal government estimates the value of materials in e-waste reached $820 million in 2019, but only $145 million of that value was captured before those discarded goods hit landfill.
Australia contributes a particularly high level of e-waste per capita, CEO Anthony Karam told SmartCompany, posing a significant opportunity for waste agnostic processors like Sircel.
But some of the most promising e-waste is defunct solar panels, including ‘first generation’ units approaching the end of their lifespan.
“There’s a whole wave of solar panels that are going to need to be recycled,” Karam said.
“When you look at what’s traditionally happened in Australia, the majority, unfortunately to date have either gone to landfill, or have been sent overseas for recycling.
“So there really is no reason why we shouldn’t be supporting and establishing large-scale operations here in Australia.”
Sircel is in the process of establishing an automated solar panel recycling site within the Parkes Recycling Special Activation Precinct, NSW’s first dedicated resource recycling precinct.
That first-in-Australia automated solar panel recycling system, built in Japan, was originally commissioned by Scipher Technologies.
But Sircel took over much of Scipher Technologies’ operations in May, including the projected solar panel recycling site.
The machinery is on its way to Australia, and its permanent home in the Parkes recycling hotspot.
“It will allow us to actually do that job with decent volume,” Karam said.
Commodities retrieved from e-waste are only valuable if they can find buyers, and Karam is optimistic Australian manufacturers will be able to benefit from those recycled materials meaningfully.
“We’ve done traditional mining, and we saw the power and environmental impact of digging this material up,” Karam said.
“That was required at the time, but there’s no reason why, if we do have processes available, that we can’t be reusing that [material] and getting a longer-term benefit from that original harm, or work, or extraction, that was done.”
That viewpoint is echoed by governments at both the state and federal level, whose environmental ministers have agreed to pursue a circular economy — where valuable and recyclable resources do not exit the supply chain — by 2030.
Numerous councils across the map already have dedicated e-waste drop-off systems, allowing residents to dispose of their technology before it is mixed in with general household waste and deemed unretrievable.
That’s the sort of waste transfer Sircel hopes will become more prominent in the years ahead.
“Once that becomes accepted from a government procurement perspective, then we can actually start doing things on scale across multiple sectors there as well,” Karam said.
Buy-in from private enterprises will also make it easier for enterprises like Sircel to extract valuable materials before they are lost to landfill, he continued.
“Putting all those pieces together, we can actually get some tangible outcomes.”
Ben Krasnostein, founder and managing director of Kilara Capital, said Sircel posed a compelling business case.
“After so many years of R&D, it’s an exciting and critical time for the business as it scales nationally, diverting more e-waste from landfill and recovering more materials than was previously thought possible,” he said in a statement.
“We’re particularly buoyed by the opportunities to salvage precious metals from e-waste to power the future of renewable energy, reducing reliance on mining operations.”
Kilara Capital portfolio manager, Irina McCreadie, will join Sircel’s board of directors as part of the deal.
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Senior Business Journalist
Focused on the small business sector, David’s work covers the political, regulatory, and economic issues facing Australian entrepreneurs. Prior to joining SmartCompany, he was a reporter for Business Insider Australia. You can follow him on LinkedIn.
