Inside the Largest Urban Mining Plant in Latin America

The process of recovering and properly treating electronic waste helps preserve natural resources and avoids the extraction of new raw materials. | Photo: Ambipar.

Ambipar opens a facility in São José dos Campos focused on medium- and large-scale electronic waste.

The largest urban mining plant in Latin America has just been launched in São José dos Campos, São Paulo. The facility was inaugurated by Ambipar, a Brazilian multinational that invests in and operates projects related to circular economy, decarbonization, energy transition, and environmental regeneration. Invited by the company, CicloVivo attended the inauguration and explored the entire process.

Brazil is the fifth-largest producer of electronic waste in the world, according to a study published by Green Eletron in 2021. A report developed by the United Nations University states that Brazil discarded over two million tons of electronic waste in 2019, but less than 3% was recycled. This gap between production and recycling adds to the already challenging scenario of solid waste management.

Reintroducing post-consumer waste into new industrial life cycles, on the other hand, mitigates this issue. Proper processing of waste enables such reintegration. For electronic waste, graphite and cobalt extracted from lithium batteries can be used to produce new batteries. Wires can be separated into PVC plastic and copper. Plastic parts can be used for energy generation, and copper for new wires. This fosters a circular economy, breaking the old cycle of extraction, production, and disposal.

Urban Mining

Urban mining is the process of recovering materials from discarded waste, serving as a way to reclaim valuable resources and reduce dependency on further extraction of natural resources. Ambipar already processed small and medium-sized electronic materials in São José dos Campos, but now its capacity has nearly tripled, increasing from 30,000 tons to 80,000 tons of electronics and appliances per year. Overall, the unit has received R$ 100 million in investments.

From batteries to refrigerators, 10,000 tons of electronic waste arrive at the plant in São Paulo’s interior. With the expansion, the focus is on reverse manufacturing of medium- and large-sized equipment, such as stoves, washing machines, microwaves, and even refrigerators, which require special treatment for CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) gases. The goal is to reach 30,000 tons within the next two years.

Cooperatives, industries, and retailers are some of the sectors sending waste to the unit to be treated and resold as raw materials. Waste collection is primarily sourced from two channels. The first comes from post-sale defective products under warranty. Brands like Apple, Samsung, and Electrolux account for 90% of the waste arriving at the facility. The remaining waste mainly comes from eco-points and PEVs (Voluntary Delivery Points) managed by Green Eletron, a reverse logistics entity for electronic products and batteries with nearly 10,000 collection points across Brazilian cities. Ambipar also operates “Retorna Machines,” which are positioned in high-traffic areas and exchange recyclable materials for rewards.

How Urban Mining Works

All materials with a plug or battery, at the end of their useful life, are considered electronic waste – and all types are sent to and processed by the urban mining plant in São José dos Campos. Every minute detail of the process is recorded. Each piece is photographed from transportation and receipt, through the entire reverse manufacturing process, to the end when raw material is generated. Each company’s batches are handled separately to ensure end-to-end traceability for the client.

The process of mining large equipment involves pre-shredding and a magnetic conveyor belt that separates ferrous from non-ferrous materials (aluminum, plastic, copper, brass, electronic boards, stainless steel). The separation and valuation of components depend on a series of stages and technologies. An example is the induction sorting system, which performs magnetic separation of items, detaching metals from plastics. In another system, the plastic material passes through an infrared light beam that, by reading the characteristics of the plastic type, can sort by color. On a subsequent conveyor belt, all colored items are sorted by plastic type. There are various processes, and everything is highly automated.

All the materials sorted at the facility re-enter the market as raw materials, even being incorporated into Ambipar’s own solutions. There is an ongoing project with Lorenzetti where shower plastic is returned to the company. Lorenzetti, in turn, blends recycled plastic with virgin plastic to manufacture new products. However, this is not the norm. Most products arriving at Ambipar’s plant are separated, processed, and exit as ready-to-use raw materials to be refined and resold.

Marcelo Oliveira, Head of the urban mining unit at Ambipar Environment, explains that Brazil was 20 years behind in metal separation technology, but this has changed. There is equipment operating at the plant that was launched in Europe in January. The machinery is imported from Germany, Italy, and Spain, along with national equipment. With these advancements, Ambipar can handle materials that other companies cannot manage. An example is “zorba” (aluminum, brass, and copper mixed), which Gerdau, the country’s largest steel producer, lacks the technology to separate. For the steel mill, all the processed iron from the plant is sent – 55% of the material arriving there is iron.

Benefits

In addition to generating savings and meeting the National Solid Waste Policy, all this work aligns with the need for companies to reduce their pollutant emissions. For instance, one ton of aluminum equals 16 tons of CO2 extracted from nature. Through urban mining, Ambipar prevents the release of 9,600 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

“Our goal is to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere and soil contamination. The recovery and proper treatment of this type of waste allow for the preservation of natural resources and avoids extracting new raw materials needed by the industry,” explains Oliveira.

The process is also highly efficient, contrary to what one might imagine. In gold production, one ton of processed material yields two grams of gold. For copper, ten kilograms of copper are obtained per ton processed. In urban mining, the numbers are significantly higher. Depending on the case, it is possible to extract 30 to 50 grams of gold from electronic waste, which would otherwise be urban trash. This component is mainly obtained from small electronics, such as mobile phones and laptops.

In devices storing confidential data, such as computers and phones, the entire reverse manufacturing process also ensures customer security by shredding devices to dimensions of 1 to 8 millimeters for such equipment and 10 to 35 millimeters for other electronics. This eliminates the data. The entire decharacterization process is filmed and audited.

However, conserving natural resources, promoting a circular economy, and protecting environmental and human health depend on awareness across the entire supply chain – from manufacturers to retailers needing to provide disposal points – to the end consumer, who must correctly dispose of electronics and appliances. To find the nearest collection point, check the delivery points of Green Eletron and Abree.

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