Updated: Startup company to build $340M facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana

The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has approved a $768,000 purchase agreement for the 76-acre Adams Township Industrial Park property in the southeast area of the community. The land was purchased by the newly formed Exurban USA, a metals recycler with ties to the United Kingdom.   

“We are excited to announce the site of the world’s first zero-waste smelter refinery to offer a domestic, low-carbon solution to the global challenge of e-waste,” says Jean Paul Deco, co-founder of Exurban USA. “We are delighted with the welcome we have been given in Indiana, and I am proud that the plant we are announcing today will set new standards in recycling critical metals from discarded waste streams.”

The company plans to build a $340 million recycling facility that will create some 200 jobs with salaries of $50,000 to $70,000 by the end of 2026. The facility will include six or seven buildings and be up to 2 million square feet, according to Jonathan Leist, the city’s deputy director of redevelopment.  

“We’re pleased to be working with Fort Wayne,” says Wes Adams, a project manager for Exurban. “It’s a good place for business and conducive for this type of industry.”  

This will be the first facility the company has constructed. The facility will be able to retrieve metals including copper, gold and silver from e-waste or discarded electronic appliances such as mobile phones, computers and televisions.

Exurban will begin the site engineering and permitting process for approval by the city’s planning commission, which is expected to take about a year. Construction of the facility will begin in 2023 and should take 18 to 24 months. 

The company says this development is in response to the millions of tons of e-waste buried in landfills or shipped overseas every year, resulting in a negative impact on health and the environment. The plant will enable the company to stop shipping waste to other countries while deploying new, proven technology to set new standards in recycling e-waste.