An Oregon-based e-scrap processor says government regulation practices and tough commodity markets have led the company to relocate shredding operations to Texas. Export Global Metals (EG Metals) has battled with state environmental regulators over compliance with stormwater regulations at its Portland, Ore.-area facility. The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in January fined the company, alleging it exposed e-scrap to...

Researchers funded by the U.S. government have developed an easier and cheaper way of extracting rare earth elements from magnets in electronics. Now the method will be used by a publicly traded company. The technology, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Critical Materials Institute, is being licensed to Texas-based U.S. Rare Earths, which will use the process to attempt...

Sage Sustainable Electronics has unveiled what it hopes can be the Kelley Blue Book of the e-scrap industry. Columbus, Ohio-based Sage announced the public launch of the Sage BlueBook, a website providing estimates of values of e-scrap. The free beta version is the world's largest source of pricing information for used computing devices, according to Sage."We hope that the BlueBook...

California e-scrap processing firm Arrow Recovery received an approval to build what would be its first metals refining operation. The company plans to erect two buildings totaling nearly 72,000 square feet in the Los Angeles-area city of Fontana. Arrow Recovery, headquartered in the Bay Area, purchased the property in October 2014, according to county property records.The company is different from...

While retail locations provide the best collection points for post-consumer film plastics, governments and haulers play a crucial role in ensuring a successful program, according to speakers on a recent webinar. Local governments have various communications channels through which to communicate with the public, and they have local credibility, said Becky Curtis, recycling assistant at the Department of Public Works...

The New Zealand government will fund efforts to create a plastic film recycling infrastructure while avoiding bag bans or fees. The island country of 4.5 million people currently has no film recycling program. Environment Minister Nick Smith announced the government will provide a $700,000 ($465,000 U.S. dollars) grant to the Packaging Forum and a $510,000 ($339,000 USD) grant to plastics...

Draft regulations would require electronics manufacturers to finance the collection and recycling of e-scrap in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The province's Environment and Local Government department is seeking public comment on the regulations. New Brunswick, with a population of 754,000 people, would be the last of Canada's Atlantic provinces to implement extended producer responsibility for electronics."Consumers will be...

Dell experienced a year-over-year decline in e-scrap collections last year, but the company still expects to achieve its goal of taking back 1 million tons of electronics by 2020. That's according to the company's 2015 corporate social responsibility report, which covered the period from February 2014 through January 2015.Dell collected 86,310 tons of e-scrap during fiscal year 2015, a 25...

Federal officials have allayed concerns that an executive order regarding environmentally friendly electronics purchasing will erode use of the EPEAT program. President Obama's March 2015 executive order on sustainable-product purchasing excluded an explicit requirement that federal agencies give purchasing preference to electronics meeting the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards.That omission concerned EPEAT advocates, who feared the decision could...

Illinois is set to put a legislative Band-Aid on the state's e-scrap program, requiring electronics manufacturers to collect and recycle more material in coming years. Passed unanimously by both the state House of Representatives and Senate, HB 1455 would require manufacturers to collect and recycle a combined 23,300 tons of e-scrap in 2015 and 24,800 tons in 2016 and 2017....