ERI, Cyclic Materials Ink Deal to Recycle US Rare Earths
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- ERI and Cyclic Materials signed a global partnership to recover rare earths and critical minerals from e-waste, creating what the companies call one of the largest commercial rare-earth recycling feedstock portfolios in the US
- ERI will collect and prepare electronics at its eight US recycling centers, processing more than 1 million pounds of electronic waste daily, and uses AI-based software to identify and sort magnet-containing materials by purity
- Cyclic Materials' Mesa, Arizona plant can process up to 25,000 metric tonnes of end-of-life components annually and will also recover copper and aluminum alongside rare earth elements
- The partnership comes as governments push to reduce imported-rare-earth dependence, especially for EV motors and wind turbines, with the companies also jointly bidding on government and commercial recycling contracts
- Cyclic Materials is expanding rare-earth recovery operations across North America, Europe, and Asia to convert growing waste streams into domestic mineral supply
- The companies are currently qualifying product categories and have identified several high-volume candidates but have not disclosed which products they are nor provided a timeline for when recycled material enters the US supply chain
Why it matters: Rare earth magnets are essential to EV motors and wind turbines, and most US supply currently comes from abroad. By converting more than 1 million pounds of daily e-waste into a domestic rare-earth feedstock stream — backed by Cyclic's 25,000-metric-tonne Arizona processing capacity — the deal offers manufacturers a near-term alternative to imported materials, though no timeline has been set for when the recycled supply actually enters the market.
