EnviroLeach Technologies Inc. has commenced construction of a 10 tonne per day e-waste processing plant. The plant is being developed in partnership with Mineworx Technologies Ltd.

The plant has been designed to be scalable and will have an initial capacity of 5.5 million pounds per year of printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs). The company says it will be the largest and most environmentally friendly chemistry-based e-waste processing facility in North America.

The EnviroLeach process is a proprietary water-based formula and its primary ingredients are FDA approved food-grade additives.

The process plant will handle all aspects of the e-waste recycling process including, material pre-treatment, shredding, grinding, leaching and metal extraction. The plant is currently under construction at the Mineworx facility in Coquitlam, B.C., Canada and is expected to be completed and deployed to a strategic location and be operational by the end of November this year.

The company has applied for and will conform to most of the industry certification programs including, the e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling of Electronic Equipment, the Recycling Industry Operating Standard (RIOS) and the Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI) Responsible Recycling (R2). These organizations require electronics recyclers and processors to adhere to a set of requirements that regulate environmental, worker health and safety and security practices.

The company says it is in discussions with numerous North American and international e-waste recyclers, aggregators, OEMs, associations and manufacturers which have expressed interest in supplying high-grade e-waste for processing. The target material would include: set top box boards, memory modules, motherboards, PCI boards, hard drive boards, CPU processors, cell phones and other PCBA based components and materials.

“We are all very excited about the development of this unique plant,” EnviroLeach CEO Duane Nelson said in a statement. “Both the EnviroLeach and Mineworx teams have been discreetly working on the design, engineering, specifications and pilot testing of this project since November 2016. The primary shredding and milling components have already been completed and the fabrication of the primary structures and other major components were started some 60 days ago.… This facility represents the world’s first truly 'green' solution for the extraction of precious and strategic metals from e-waste and I’m very proud of both teams for their discretion, determination and continued commitment to this important project.”

The company says it has identified other potential plant locations across North America and that it has international inquiries.