TIANJIN, June 22 Asia Pulse An electronic waste treatment and recovery center, the first of its kind in north China, will be put into operation in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA) in coming September.

With the operation of the center, all the electronic waste in north China will be converted into useful materials and recycled, sources with TEDA said.

It is learned that TEDA's electronic industry focuses on such core products as mobile phones, displays and auto electronics produced by Motolora, Samsung, Toyota and other companies. However, for a long period of time, the electronic junk occurred in the production are only stored, not treated.

To make use of these electronic waste materials, the TEDA administration decided to introduce the latest technologies for electronic waste disposal from a Taiwan company and build a treatment center.

Involving a total investment of 100 million yuan (US$12 million), the treatment and recovery center will recycle the electronic waste and will extract rare metals such as gold, silver and palladium and other metals including zinc, iron and copper. After the extraction, the waste residues will be recovered for building materials.

The TEDA administration said, in addition to the treatment of the electronic waste in its development area, the center will also collect and recycle all the electronic waste in the whole region of north China.