Raising public awareness on electronic waste as a source of valuable materials (AWARE)
a Wider Society Learning project of

AWARE. Raising public awareness on electronic waste as a source of valuable materials
The aim of the project is to increase the share of waste ending up in official take-back systems instead of losing the resource to waste disposal or incineration plants and collection outside official take-back systems. To achieve that, the project focuses on education and involvement of school children, both to raise the awareness of end-of-life electronics as a resource, and through them to bring the message into families and the society as whole.
Videos
News
The curse of white oil?
“The curse of ‘white oil’: electric vehicles’ dirty secret” is the attention-grabbing headline of an in-depth article on lithium mining published in The Guardian (Dec’ 8, 2020). Peter Tom Jones (SIM², KU Leuven) reacts in this piece.
Using deep learning & X-Ray images to improve battery removal and recycling
Researchers from the Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) research group (SIM² KU Leuven) used X-Ray images of WEEE and applied a deep neural network to automatically detect the location of batteries to improve removal and recycling.
Evaluating product repairability: a case study for washing machines
The lifecycle engineering (LCE) research group (SIM² KU Leuven) and the European Commission DG Joint Research Centre (Seville) have recently developed two methods to assess the repairability of energy and resource related products.
NEW-MINE Policy Brief: Climate change, flooding and landfills
To mine or not to mine our 500,000+ landfills in Europe, that was the question addressed in MSCA-ETN NEW-MINE. In this final Policy Brief, the project coordinator addresses the impact of climate change on the safety of landfills.
Webinar series ‘Towards a Responsible Supply Chain for Electronics’
In three webinars, expert panelists will explore ways “Towards a responsible Supply Chain for Electronics – From Mining to Manufacturing” and analyse the different links in the ICT supply chain, from e.g. copper production, to artisanal and small-scale mining, and worker rights in manufacturing.
EIT Raw Materials Funding for Master in Sustainable Materials (SUMA)
The EIT-Labelled Master Programme in Sustainable Materials (SUMA) has received a funding from EIT Raw Materials to continue educating high-level EU & international students in the field of materials science and engineering.
EIT funding secured for new Circular Economy Summer Schools
SIM² KU Leuven and MRC are delighted to announce that they secured funding for a new EIT RawMaterials education project (DocSumECE), comprising several PhD summer schools on Entrepreneurship in the Circular Economy in 2021-22.
Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy obtains Impact Factor of 2,109
In March 2015 the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy (JSM) launched its first issue. Now, just more than 5 years, JSM obtained its first Impact Factor. With a score of 2,109, the journal ranks second among TMS journals for 2019.
Solvometallurgical cobalt recovery from Li-ion battery cathode materials
SOLVOMET/SIM² KU Leuven researchers developed a novel solvometallurgical approach to recover cobalt from Li-ion battery cathode materials. This work was supported by EU H2020 CROCODILE and published in the journal Green Chemistry.
AWARE Workshop – “Welcome to Weeeland and Relight”
On 5th November 2019, within the EIT PROJECT AWARE and specifically WP2 and WP3, the partner Relight organized a Workshop for the University of Trento students and high-school teachers. The session was organized in collaboration with the other project partners...