World Recycling Forum: Sustainable Thinking

Xstrata Copper bills its Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canada, as “the world’s largest processor of electronic scrap containing copper and precious metals.”

Speaking during a session of the World Recycling Forum, held in Hong Kong in mid-November, Paul Healey of Xstrata outlined how the company has put a sustainability plan in place that ideally ensures that the surrounding community understands the smelter’s role in the recycling loop.

Healey said its Horne Smelter takes “relatively low-grade materials,” containing perhaps 20 percent copper, “and upgrades the material to 99 percent pure copper, which then goes to Xstrata’s Montreal refinery to become finished product.”

About 85 percent of the feedstock for the Horne Smelter consists of copper concentrate that averages about 24 percent copper content, Healey added, with the remaining 15 percent of feedstock being electronic scrap and circuit boards, including material from Xstrata Recycling’s facilities in California and Rhode Island.

In Rouyn-Noranda and surrounding communities, Healey said Xstrata has implemented a sustainability policy that “extends to asset management, product stewardship, contractor management, procurement” and strengthening ties with the community and government agencies.

The results in Quebec, said Healey, have included improvements in safety performance, community relations, relationships with regulators and assurances to suppliers regarding liability and risk management.

At the same Forum session, Joe Yob, business development manager of the electronics recycling company Creative Recycling Systems Inc., Tampa, Fla., provided an update on the progress of the Responsible Recycling Act of 2011 in both houses of Congress.

Known as HR 2284 in the House of Representatives, Yob said the bill has gained bi-partisan support and is supported by companies such as Dell, Apple, HP, Best Buy and “29 large recycling companies.”

The legislation, Yob added, “prohibits exports of non-tested and non-working equipment and prohibits shipping shredded material containing “certain toxic materials.” Yob said the proposed legislation “brings [the United States] somewhat in alignment with the Basel Convention.”

In both the House and the Senate, added Yob, the Responsible Recycling Act is being considered in sub-committees and is likely to undergo changes as it works its way through both congressional chambers. He speculated that phrasing to include rare earth metals recycling within the law’s text is one likely addition.

The 2011 World Recycling Forum, hosted by ICM AG, was Nov. 15-18 in Hong Kong.