INDIANAPOLIS — Taking technology to another level, the Recycle Force facility is home to the first machine of its kind, which recovers rare earth materials from electronic waste.
"Most of you know we employ people coming home from prison. And Americans buy too much stuff and throw it away, and we're trying to figure out how we remake the people and the things we throw away and things society wants and needs," Gregg Keesling, President & Founder of Recycle Force, said.
A significant milestone has been reached here in Indianapolis, Keesling said, which will strengthen the nation's supply chain.
"We've been taking the stuff we throw away, our electronics, our cell phones, our refrigerators, you name it, right? And we've been breaking them into steel, copper, aluminum, plastic, and then all the circuit boards that contain gold, silver, and this rare earth. We've not had a way to recover this rare earth,” Keesling said.
The process takes three simple steps, yet hours to perfect. It starts with pre-shredded electronic material from the Recycle Force.
"We'll start by taking this and putting it into this large tumbler behind us,” Daniel Bina, CEO of TdVib, said. "In there, those materials will be mixed with a liquid solution."
That mixture is then separated.
"It can go on into these tanks that you see over here, and we precipitate out the rare earth as a solid,” Bina said.
Finally, the rare earth solids are shipped off to a company to be sold.
Bina said his team has been working to develop this technology for nearly nine years.
"The project that you see here today really is taking that technology and putting it into a form that could go out into the country and globally and go to the source of where these materials are and have processing there on site,” Bina said.
Keesling explains why Indianapolis was the perfect place to test this out.
"We're in the Silicon Valley of logistics," Keesling said. "We're in the Crossroads of America, and that's why we're located in a great place to do this work."
In terms of an economic impact, Keesling replied, "The chip manufacturers that we're trying to attract here, if we can get this to a process where they can utilize it, then that becomes, you know, critical for them."
It's going to take some time before Indiana will see the economic impact of this machine, but what we do know is this a game changer for how we recycle globally.
