Canadian mining company Noranda has announced the reorganisation of its wholly owned, US-based recycling arm into a dedicated new company called Noranda Recycling Inc.

The new company will comprise three recycling sites previously operated by Micro Metallics Corp, located in San Jose and Roseville in California, and Lavergne, Tennessee.

A fourth plant at East Providence, Rhode Island will be taken over from Noranda Sampling Inc, and a new one set up in Brampton, Ontario.

Production is expected to begin at Brampton later this month (July). It is designed to process around a million pounds of end-of-life electronic equipment a month.

Copper and precious metal recovery from articles produced by the electronic, telecommunications, automotive, refining and metal fabrication industries will remain the speciality of the San Jose and East Providence plants.

According to Johnson Matthey's latest report on the state of the platinum industry more than 90 per cent of the world's hard disks contain platinum, making the electronics sector a rich source of recovery of the precious metal.

The Brampton, Roseville and Lavergne facilities will concentrate on end of life recycling, utilising Noranda's links with Hewlett Packard and other original equipment manufacturers.