MaSeR Expands Ontario Plant

When MaSeR Corp., Marblehead, Mass., started up its Barrie, Ontario, Canada facility in March of 2005, the concept was to provide service to its key client, co-located in Barrie, along with other electronic scrap recyclers throughout Canada. (See the Recycling Today feature story here.)

But the company says that electronics recyclers throughout North America have begun to express interest in shipping to Ontario to test out and use the MaSeR system, so the company has upgraded some of the front-end processing equipment so more material can be processed.

The Barrie operation is now capable of processing from 3 to 5 tons of electronic scrap per hour, according to the firm.

MaSeR’s technology incorporates a de-lamination process along with shredding and separation technology to provide maximum recovery of materials from electronic scrap.

Its main client and Barrie landlord, Cable Recycling Inc. (CRI-GEEP) considers the MaSeR process key to the growth of its electronics recycling business. “Our clients, particularly Canadian OEMs, will not tolerate unchecked export of electronic scrap and, at the same time, demand an efficient and cost-effective alternative,” says Alfred Hambsch, CEO of Barrie Metals and CRI-GEEP. “They see our asset recovery capabilities, coupled with complete material recovery in the MaSeR process, as an opportunity to dramatically reduce the cost of responsible domestic processing.”

MaSeR’s business plan calls for similar operations in the U.S., Europe and Asia within the next few years. In the meantime, the upgraded Barrie operation is providing U.S. recyclers with an alternative to the de-manufacturing for some items. “We’re quite pleased that the U.S. e-recycling community has responded in the manner in which they have,” says Dale Johnson, CEO of MaSeR Corp. “We figured we would need to have a U.S.-based operation first before we could demonstrate MaSeR’s value to the U.S. e-recycling community [and] the activity we now have with U.S recyclers shipping to Barrie will help MaSeR seed the market for the build-out of our operations in the U.S.”

MaSeR’s major investor is Greenwich, Conn.-based Asia West, which backs other advanced environmental technology companies, including recyclers MBA Polymers and Mobius Technologies, both based in California.

More information on MaSeR can be found on its Web site at www.masercorp.com .