*E-Recycling Leader Opens $3m Plant in **Wales**.*
*Auckland**, **New Zealand* - One of the world’s leaders in the field of recycling “e-waste” Citiraya Recycling
Technology Ltd which assists New Zealand mobile phone users to safely reprocess their old phones, opened this week a TV
and monitor recycling plant at Hirwaun in Wales.
Citiraya, a certified recycler, is part of a global, Singapore-based group which specialises in recycling surplus,
obsolete and scrap electronics equipment including old phones from New Zealanders that otherwise would end up as toxic
waste in landfills. New Zealand produces more overall waste per capita than any other OECD country.
Approximately 2.6 million Kiwis use a mobile phone and change their handsets approximately every 18 to 24 months. Many
of these old mobile phones are now being shipped directly to Singapore for reprocessing.
Some telecommunications providers in New Zealand including Telecom and Vodafone have encouraged mobile users (consumers,
companies and public authorities) to recycle their mobile phones thanks to a process that is made possible by Citiraya.
This is in addition to a major New Zealand nationwide mobile phone recycling campaign called ‘Zero Waste’ created to
help reduce the amount of mobile waste each year.
At Citiraya in Singapore, mobile phone components are crushed, incinerated, then turned into powder by a process called
ball milling.
World demand for Citiraya’s skills and technology is growing rapidly as is exemplified by the opening of a new recycling
plant in Wales.
Citiraya has recently invested $3m at Hirwaun in Wales where it will employ 70 people to use (for the first time in the
UK) laser separation technology to recycle glass from cathode ray tubes. Laser separation is a new, high technology
solution to the problem of safely separating and recycling the components in cathode ray tubes for reuse.
The Hirwaun plant has 35,000 sq.ft. of processing space and an initial capacity to recycle 500,000 Cathode Ray Tubes a
year – approximately five per cent of the total UK annual volume of redundant tubes.
The investment by Citiraya is being backed by Regional Selective Assistance from the Welsh Assembly Government and
support from the Welsh Development Agency, which helped the company choose a Welsh location for an ambitious new high
tech venture.
Andrew Davies, Welsh Minister for Economic Development and Transport said, “Citiraya is at the forefront of
environmental recycling technology and “I am delighted that we have been able to provide support for the company to
establish a high tech facility in Wales, which will be the first in the UK to use the latest Laser Cutting Technology in
the recycling process.
A Citiraya spokesman said that the company opted for Wales because of the availability of high quality staff and
premises at Hirwaun because of the ease of logistical access for incoming e-waste from central and southern Britain and
for outgoing shipments of reclaimed material.
Citiraya’s parent group, which operates across five continents, plans to continue its aggressive development across
Europe to enable electronic manufacturers to comply with strict new European Union directives on recycling.
The group has recycling contracts with many of the world’s electronics giants commanding a significant share of the
market for scrapped electronics that manufacturers themselves collect and pass on for recycling.
Until recently, most of the world’s defunct electronic equipment has ended up in landfill sites in developing countries.
Now Governments around the world are moving, like the EU, to make manufacturers more accountable for their products when
they fall out of use.
Citiraya is at the forefront of the technology required to deal with this new market.