The California-based company developed printed circuit board processing technology and owned ITAD firm Stream Recycling Solutions. | Raigvi/Shutterstock
Camston Wrather, a California-headquartered company that developed printed circuit board processing technology and owned ITAD firm Stream Recycling Solutions, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this month, indicating the company will liquidate its assets to pay creditors.
The Carlsbad, California-based company has been known in the electronics recycling sector for processing circuit boards at a California facility, which E-Scrap News previously described as a “green smelter.” The facility featured a system that produces a precious metals-rich fraction, a fraction with various other valuable metals, and a fraction of polymers that can be recycled.
In 2019, the firm directly entered the ITAD sector by acquiring Stream Recycling Solutions, a processor that operated facilities in the Florida cities of Tampa, Plant City and Fort Lauderdale as well as in St. Louis, Phoenix and Carlsbad, California.
On Feb. 13, the company submitted a Chapter 7 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Camston Wrather reported having liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million and assets of between $10 million and $50 million. The company signaled it plans to sell off assets to pay an estimated 50-100 creditors.
Details on what led up to the company’s bankruptcy are scarce. Neither the company nor its legal representation responded to requests for comment on Feb. 19. A meeting of creditors is set for March 12.
The company was founded in 2014, initially focusing on extracting precious metals from mining tailings, a byproduct that’s left over after the desired materials are recovered. The company later shifted to tackling circuit boards, developing what company leaders described to E-Scrap News as a mechanical process that uses water, not high heat or chemicals, to recover metals from shredded boards.
The company positioned itself as an alternative to traditional smelting, as have other hydrometallurgical ventures like Mint Innovation.
As of 2023, Camston Wrather was operating a 115,000-square-foot facility using the metals recovery technology in Carlsbad, where it shredded circuit boards and produced concentrated outputs of metals. At the time, the company anticipated the Carlsbad facility would process 20 million pounds of circuit boards per year.
Those boards were sourced from a network of aggregation centers located in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas, some of which were Stream Recycling Solutions collection and processing locations.
Stream, which expanded in the years following its 2019 acquisition, has closed at least a couple of its facilities of late. The company held R2 certification at its locations in Plant City and Tampa; R2 records show those facilities closed in 2024. The company’s website is not currently active.