CW&RE: Noranda E-recycling in High Gear

While legislative bodies and quasi-governmental organizations in Canada debate the future of electronics recycling in Canada, mining and metals company Noranda Inc., Toronto, has opened a facility there that can a portion of the building inventory of obsolete electronics.

Cindy Thomas of Noranda told attendees of a session sponsored by CARI (the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries) at the Canadian Waste & Recycling Expo in Toronto in early December that the company’s suburban Toronto plant “has become part of the solution.”

Thomas, plant manager of the Brampton, Ontario, Noranda Recycling facility, says the 82,000 sq. ft. plant can handle up to 500 tons of electronic scrap per month. The plant accepts computers, peripherals, entertainment appliances, office equipment, telephones and cell phones for dismantling and resource recovery.

The facility is modeled on two plants that opened previously in the U.S.—one in Roseville, Calif., that opened in 1996 and the other in Nashville, Tenn., which opened in 2001.

Much of the equipment is disassembled for recoverable components, said Thomas, as well as so hazardous or nuisance materials such as lithium batteries and toner cartridges can be removed before shredding. Circuit boards are also shipped separately to a Noranda facility in Rhode Island to be smelted for precious metals recovery.

The shredder yields several secondary resource streams, including ferrous and nonferrous metals and mixed plastics.

Thomas says the mixed plastics recycling market is still severely underdeveloped. Currently, most plastic materials go to Noranda’s copper smelter, “where we use them for their BTU value” in the smelting process, she noted. Thomas added that the technology to separate plastics by resin exists, but to do so at the current volume level and at current market prices for scrap plastic “is not commercially viable.”