"It's Not Just Trash, It's a Goldmine"... Korean Firm Profits by Dismantling Discarded Laptops [Future from Urban Mining] ①

[Field Report] Inside Korea Zinc's Chicago Hub
Leading Resource Circulation by Extracting Minerals from Electronics and Solar Panels
Recycling Copper, Silver, and More as Materials for Next-Generation Servers

On May 13 (local time), after a 40-minute drive from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, we arrived at the Evtera Recycling Chicago Hub, operated by PedalPoint, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc. Evtera, a U.S. e-waste recycling specialist acquired by PedalPoint—Korea Zinc's U.S. subsidiary established in 2022—serves as the North American base for Korea Zinc's resource circulation business. At the plant's loading dock, which spans about 9,600 square meters, trucks loaded with discarded solar panels were lined up in succession.

Passing through the loading dock and entering the hub's factory, various boxes containing separated e-waste such as hard disk drives, network equipment, and laptops came into view. These were not finished, packaged products, but end-of-life devices awaiting disassembly. Each box was labeled with the product type and weight, and it was determined where each item would be sent and which workbench it would pass through. This place was not a warehouse for storing waste, but the starting point of a process that restores discarded resources into minerals.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) that have undergone collection and automated processing are piled up like a mountain inside a sack. Korea Zinc

A view of Evitera Recycling Chicago Hub, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc, Pedalpoint. Korea Zinc

Inside view of the Chicago hub. A forklift is transporting waste electronic and electrical equipment. Korea Zinc

The world is turning its eyes to “urban mining” as an alternative to disrupt the critical mineral supply chain, which China controls from extraction to processing. This method extracts metals from discarded industrial waste such as electronic products, batteries, and solar panels and restores them as resources. The Chicago Hub is where e-waste collected from across the United States is reborn as metal resources.

The dismantling process begins with a safety check. Before e-waste is officially dismantled, the first machine encountered is a hazardous material detector, which functions much like a large security scanner at an airport. Using X-ray lasers, it checks for toner cartridges, batteries, or other potentially explosive items inside the products. If any hazardous items are detected, they are extracted, and sorting by type and process begins immediately.

In the PCB dismantling work area, a team of three to four people manually selects visible printed circuit boards (PCBs), carefully inspects them for excessive contamination, and removes them by hand. This manual process, rather than proceeding straight to crushing, helps preserve PCBs in better condition.

Once collection is complete, the discarded products move on to the crushing process. When crushing begins, the machinery is so loud that conversation inside the factory becomes difficult. The crushing process is mostly automated, and the dismantling steps can be monitored on screens.

A dismantling team consisting of three to four members is first manually removing printed circuit boards (PCBs). Korea Zinc

The first material to be separated is iron. It is extracted with a primary magnetic separator, followed by aluminum and plastics, which are recovered sequentially with a secondary eddy current separator.

Any remaining PCBs that have not yet been extracted are finally collected by a robot. “Robin,” which has an arm-like design, uses an artificial intelligence (AI) system to identify raw materials containing precious metals and quickly picks up remaining PCB fragments using vacuum suction. Robin, a waste sorting robot developed by RoboOne, a Korea Zinc subsidiary, received an Innovation Award in the Smart City and Sustainability·Energy & Strategy categories at CES 2025, the world's largest electronics and IT exhibition.

The gathered PCBs are then packed into large sacks and shipped to the Onsan Smelter in Ulsan, where they are recovered as copper, gold, silver, and other metals. Iron, plastic, and aluminum are sold as recycled materials within the United States. The preprocessing stage is usually completed within two to three weeks after collection, although processing speed can vary depending on order volume.

Evtera operates five hubs across the United States, including Chicago, and serves as a key base for dismantling and processing e-waste collected nationwide into raw materials just before metal recovery.

At this plant, the existing flow of resources is reversed. E-waste awaiting dismantling is essentially treated as ore. A single PCB extracted from waste contains a higher concentration of copper than natural ore. Used batteries contain nickel, cobalt, and lithium, while discarded solar panels contain high-purity silver. Rare earth elements can also be extracted from hard disk drives and electric motors.

Mark Pope, CEO of PedalPoint, said, "Until now, the flow of resources was one-directional. Resources were mined in one country, processed in another, assembled into products in yet another, and finally ended up buried in landfills or exported overseas." He continued, "Now, an end-of-life server enters our network, is safely dismantled and processed, and the metals inside are refined and returned to the original supply chain, becoming part of next-generation infrastructure."

Pope added, "Korea Zinc is the world's largest non-ferrous metal smelter, producing more than 1 million tons of over 18 types of metals annually. Thanks to this capability, we can recover not just one or two metals hidden in U.S. e-waste, but practically all the metal resources contained within them." As global supply chain conflicts intensify, the role of Korea Zinc and PedalPoint in the United States is becoming increasingly important. Last year, PedalPoint also succeeded in turning a profit.

Mark Pope, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pedalpoint. Korea Zinc

Pope further emphasized that PedalPoint’s role is to keep the resource flow—previously draining overseas—within the United States. "For decades, end-of-life electronics in the U.S. were most easily sent through brokers to Southeast Asian processors, which have significant cost advantages," he explained.

He continued, "U.S. companies regarded these as 'responsibly recycled resources' and checked compliance lists, but actual verification and tracking did not take place. As a result, over the past 30 years, the United States has quietly sent its future supply chain raw materials abroad," he pointed out.

When the integrated smelter that Korea Zinc is promoting in Tennessee is completed, the synergy with its U.S. subsidiaries is expected to multiply. This will also be an opportunity to expand the smelting expertise that Korea Zinc has accumulated over the past 50 years into the U.S. market. Pope said, "For example, it means that the entire process—from a used server in a U.S. data center to its rebirth as refined metal for next-generation products—will be completed within the U.S., under the world’s highest environmental and labor standards. Few competitors can offer comparable value for the time being," he added.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.