Longview E-Scrap Refinery Will Open by 2027
The $20 million facility aims to recover precious metals from circuit boards using a solvent-based chemical process.
Updated on Oct. 14, 2026 in Semiconductors
Live Poll
Should the U.S. prioritize increasing domestic refining capacity for recycled electronic waste?
A new $20 million e-scrap refinery under construction in Longview, Texas, is slated to begin operations in 2027. The plant is designed to process 8.8 million pounds of circuit boards annually using a specialized chemical extraction method.
Why it matters
This facility aims to alleviate the domestic deficit in refining capacity for e-waste while offering a cleaner alternative to traditional high-heat or acid-bath recycling techniques. It addresses the significant gap between the millions of pounds of electronics discarded annually in Texas and current recycling rates.
The refinery targets an annual recovery of 1,100 pounds of gold and 2.2 million pounds of copper from 8.8 million pounds of input material. This scale marks a significant expansion from the company's existing 6.6-million-pound capacity prototype plant in Sydney.
The players
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
The state regulatory body responsible for overseeing environmental policy and waste management initiatives in Texas.
The details
The facility employs hydrometallurgical processing — a chemical technique that uses liquid solutions to selectively recover metals from solid material. Workers feed boards stripped of plastic housings into a solution where solvents dissolve the metals, avoiding the environmental pollutants typical of open burning or traditional acid baths. This process isolates materials for recovery without the atmospheric emissions associated with thermal extraction methods.
Timeline
2019: Texas disposed of 531 million pounds of electronics while recycling only 35 million pounds.
2021: A report was published for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
2027: The Longview refinery is currently targeted to open.
The Tech Race
The plant's capacity increase marks a departure from the EPA's 25 percent national electronics recycling collection rate by providing the infrastructure needed to process local waste domestically. It competes with existing high-heat and acid-bath refining methods by optimizing for a solvent-based, closed-loop extraction model.
The refinery will change the end-of-life workflow for e-scrap handlers who currently struggle to find domestic refining capacity for stripped circuit boards. While the facility does not accept consumer-direct e-waste, it establishes a key processing hub that will accept materials from industrial collectors.
The takeaway
This development marks a shift toward domestic hydrometallurgical refining as a scalable alternative to traditional e-waste disposal. Watch for site construction updates in 2026 to verify if the facility remains on track for its 2027 operational target.
What happens next
Construction milestones are expected to proceed through 2025 and 2026, leading toward the currently projected facility opening in 2027.
Further reading
For more on the industry's material recovery infrastructure, visit Semiconductors.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Ecoportal.
Live Poll
Should the U.S. prioritize increasing domestic refining capacity for recycled electronic waste?
