GEM signs recycling deal with Shanghai Yueyi

Shenzhen-based GEM, China's leading enterprise in recycling electronic wastes and waste batteries, signed an agreement with Shanghai Yueyi Network Co Ltd on Wednesday to convert electronic wastes into useful materials.

Under the agreement, the website will send the electronic wastes it recycles to GEM to be dismantled in an environmental protection way.

"It is a seamless cooperation between an Internet firm with an entity which has five processing and manufacturing bases in Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Henan provinces," said Chen Xuefeng, founder and chief technology officer of the Shanghai Yueyi Network Co Ltd.

GEM, which was set up in 2001 and listed at the Shenzhen Securities Exchange in 2010, converted electronic wastes, including waste batteries, second-hand home appliances and scraped vehicles, into useful materials valued at about 3 billion yuan ($490 million) in the first nine months of this year.

Whereas, the website, which was established in 2011 to recycle second-hand mobile phones, laptops and single lens reflex cameras, is China's largest online recycler of electronic wastes at the moment. It has financed funds of $10 million by cooperating with Morningside Venture and IFC under the World Bank.

"Our growing business is calling for more funds from our partners," said Chen, adding that it will launch a new funds-collected project by discussing with GEM about the cooperation in terms of capital and stock rights.

His words were backed up by GEM Chairman Xu Kaihua, who said the company is willing to make a financial cooperation with the website.

"Discussion is underway about how much will be injected into the website," he said.

Xu said electronic wastes are valuable resources, from which a large amount of iron, copper, aluminum, rare metals, plastics and glass can be recycled.

He takes second-hand cell phones as an example, saying that 280 grams of gold and 2 kilograms of silvery can be recycled from every ton of smart mobile phones.

China scrapped 110 million pieces of electronic wastes in 2013, which are expected to rise up to 160 million in 2015. But only 43 million pieces of electronic wastes were dismantled in 2013, which are expected to reach 60 million in 2014, he said.