Technology, because it is advancing so quickly and new products are coming out every year, people dispose of their old ones. Yet, recycling companies will actually shred entire hard disk drives and sell the metals as scrap metals. The rare earth elements within that scrap metal end up in landfills. So, if we can recycling it, we can reclaim a lot of that value.

With their innovative (and proprietary) approach to recycling a pair of critical rare earth materials, the REEcycle team introduced the energy industry to an innovative way to turn waste into a domestic stream of rare earth elements (REEs).

American college students are coming with with some of the coolest ways to battle climate change and clean up domestic energy production.