At-Scale, Hard Disk Drive Rare Earth Material Capture Program Successfully Launched in the United States
Western Digital, Microsoft and others collaborate in rare earth element recovery and circular recycling program using environmentally friendly chemistry to help build up critical rare earth element reserves and enhance supply chains
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Essential to cloud data center infrastructure, hard disk drives (HDDs) are complex devices that blend material science, mechanical engineering and physics. As part of its innovation, HDDs use a range of rare earth elements (REEs) like Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr) and Dysprosium (Dy), prized for their magnetic properties to help HDDs precisely read and write data. Yet, traditional recycling methods recover only a fraction of these valuable materials, often missing rare earths entirely, leading to unnecessary waste.
In a multi-party pilot program, Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC), in collaboration with Microsoft, Critical Materials Recycling (CMR) and PedalPoint Recycling, has taken a major step toward closing that loop. Together, the companies transformed ~50,000 pounds of shredded end-of-life HDDs, mounting caddies and other materials into critical high-value materials, all while significantly reducing environmental impact. This pioneering process of creating a new advanced sorting ecosystem with an eco-friendly non-acid process not only recaptures essential rare earth elements but also extracts metals like gold (Au), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al) and steel, feeding them back into the U.S. supply chain, supporting industries that rely on these resources—such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced electronics. When scaled worldwide, this new recycling process could return a lot of recovered rare earths to the U.S. supply pool, drastically reducing the need for virgin material mining detrimental to people and planet.1 Today, most primary production (>85%) of REEs occurs outside of the U.S.2,3 and the current domestic recycling rate for REEs is very low (
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