An Amazon-affiliated upcoming Antrim Township, Pa. location will hire up to 500 workers to process electronics from data centers. | Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock
One of Amazon’s subsidiaries is planning a 550,000-square-foot data center decommissioning facility in Pennsylvania, slated to come on-line in spring of 2024.
According to local media reports, re:Cycle Reverse Logistics will operate the facility out of an existing business park space in Antrim Township, Pa. That’s near the Maryland state line, about 170 miles west of Philadelphia.
The facility will hire between 300 and 500 people and will open in April 2024.
Amazon did not immediately return requests for comment.
Lisa Anderson, spokesperson for re:Cycle Reverse Logistics, told the Central Penn Business Journal the company is “repurposing a vacant industrial building into a state-of-the-art center for the safe and responsible reuse and refurbishment of electronic equipment used in data centers.”
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Manuel de Graca, a sustainability leader at Amazon, will be taking part in the upcoming E-Scrap & E-Reuse Conference in New Orleans, speaking on the “Role of Reuse as Tech Evolves” session on Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 2 p.m. The panel is part of an info-packed three day schedule. Register for the event today.
Anderson added that the location was chosen for its proximity to the East Coast customer base and because there was an existing building already zoned for industrial use, “which allows re:Cycle Reverse Logistics to begin operations without causing disruptions to the local area.”
The move follows a handful of other electronics recycling and reuse efforts pushed forward by Amazon in recent years.
In 2019, the company partnered with nationwide e-scrap processor ERI to provide free collection for certain electronics at Amazon pick-up locations.
Earlier this year, SCS Global Services launched a recycled-content certification for the electrical and electronic equipment industries, with Amazon acting as one of the stakeholders behind the initiatives.