DESCycle has found a new way to extract critical metals including gold, silver, copper, tin, aluminium and iron from electronic scrap such as laptops, phones and fridges, without the need for a massive smelter. The Japanese and American governments are piling support into the critical metals sector, he said, with big companies like Cisco or Mitsubishi ready to partner with promising start-ups. "We do need some government support," Mr White said, "because we are obviously being pulled to these other markets with interesting commercial and government-backed offers." "I would hate for this technology to be a UK creation, UK innovation, UK scale-up, and then the country loses it when we actually go and deploy something." "What we've not seen yet is pounds starting to flow," Mr White said.