Veolia Relocates Massachusetts Electronics Recycling Plant

Veolia Environmental Services, headquartered in Chicago, will hold an official grand opening of its new electronics recycling facility in West Bridgewater, Mass., Aug. 22, 2013.

 

The 55,000-square-foot facility, located on 40 acres, has been designed to handle a range of obsolete electronics as well as fluorescent lamps, ballast, batteries and mercury-bearing waste. 

 

"As technology improves, we're able to break down and reclaim even more materials, especially hazardous materials, and prevent them from entering the waste stream," says Jim Bell, CEO and president of Veolia ES Technical Solutions. "Our investment in this facility represents our commitment to finding better solutions for lighting and electronic waste as well as ways to minimize the impact of waste on our environment."

 

The company says equipment at the facility is able to recycle more than 99 percent of a fluorescent lamp by weight. Veolia separates these lamps into their glass, aluminum and mercury-bearing phosphor powder components, reclaiming the mercury and working with partners to recover rare earth elements from the phosphor powder. 

Veolia currently processes about 15.5 million pounds of lighting and electronic scrap per year. Additionally, the company collects 10.5 million lamps per year for recycling.

Veolia relocated the 75 employees from its existing electronics recycling facility in Stoughton, Mass., to the new facility, which has been retrofitted with the most up-to-date technology, the company's spokeswoman adds.

The facility will serve industrial, commercial adn government organizations across West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England. Veolia also will provide recycling services to residents of West Bridgewater free through the town's transfer facility.