The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is funding an "Innovation Challenge" for local economy closed loop projects coordinated by the Technology Strategy Board through the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI)

Defra will invest up to £200,000 for feasibility studies to evaluate novel technical methods and business processes that can deliver high-value opportunities for the extraction of metals and minerals from domestic and commercial waste streams.

This is likely to involve local partnerships between businesses, local authorities and local communities.　

This call will fund up to five feasibility studies focusing on extracting high value metals and minerals from UK domestic and commercial waste streams.　

These studies will assess the commercial feasibility of new approaches for local businesses to extract metals and minerals from waste.

Approaches will involve a combination of: building new partnerships/supply chains, developing and applying new techniques and applying new business models to a particular sector/waste resource.

The focus of this competition is for high-value opportunities in extraction of metals and minerals, but Defra recognises that co-extraction of other materials may be necessary as part of the value proposition.

Defra is particularly interested in the recovery of materials identified by the EU as critical raw materials, but other metals and minerals are in scope for this competition where they lead to high-value opportunities.

Darrel Moore