An electronic recycling business is seeking Elgin approval to move into a 102,000-square-foot industrial building near Interstate 90 and Route 31.

Evterra Recycling, which handles surplus and obsolete electronics for Fortune 100 companies, wants to open a facility at 300 Corporate Drive in the Fox River Business Center but needs a conditional use permit from the city, senior planner Damir Latinovic told the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night.

The company accepts eScrap items like children’s toys, IT office equipment, printers, personal computers, flat-screen monitors and televisions, Latinovic said. Items are broken down, sorted and then shipped out for further recycling.

“Essentially what we do is manually separate electronics,” Evterra Recycling President Brian Diesselhorst said. Circuit boards, steel, aluminum and plastic parts are separated and sent to other recycling centers, he said.

The company also provides services like hard drive wiping and destruction to prevent the leak of sensitive business or consumer information, Diesselhorst said.

Evterra has a facility in France, where things like circuit boards are sent to extract precious metals, Diesselhorst said. The process is like above-ground mining, he said.

They have recycling centers in Atlanta, San Antonio and Henderson, Nevada, and they’re building one of the largest furnaces in the country in Savannah, Georgia, Diesselhorst said. Once it’s operational in 2024, Evterra will be able to recycle 90,000 tons of eScrap annually, he said.

Electronics make up the fastest growing type of waste in the world, with 60% currently going into landfills, Diesselhorst said.

The company’s facilities can process up to 52.5 tons of material per day. With the addition of the Elgin location, that will increase that to 83 cubic yards per day, he said.

Evterra plans to sign a long-term lease for the Elgin building, which will not be open to the public.

“We do hope to be part of the community and be here for quite some time,” Diesselhorst said.

The commission voted to recommend Elgin City Council approval of the permit, which could have the facility operational by the year’s end, officials said.

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.