RMDZ Business Success Story

ersol Silicon

Rob Bushman's father at the scrap yard in 1974.

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Purifying used silicon to be made into solar panels--that’s what ersol Silicon, formerly known as Silicon Recycling Services, Inc. (SRS), does.

Employees sort silicon for cleaning.

CIWMB staffer Barbara Van Gee presents Rob with large "check" representing $1.6 million RMDZ loan.

Rob Bushman got started in recycling when he began working in his father’s recycling scrap yard in 1974. Twenty years later, when Rob Bushman saw that high-tech manufacturers were sending silicon to landfills and that the solar power industry was in need of this material, he decided to venture into a new area of recycling.

In an effort to supply this growing demand for silicon to the solar panel industry and following in his father's footsteps, Rob started the company to recycle and purify the silicon.

In its current state, used semi-conductor silicon is 98 to 99 percent pure, which is unusable in the semiconductor or solar industry. Even the slightest impurities will reduce the solar cell’s efficiency.

With a $1.6 million low-interest loan from CIWMB's Recycling Market Development Zone (RMDZ) program, the company was able to buy the equipment necessary for cleaning the silicon. With the added equipment came added employees. When further permitting was required, the RMDZ program was able to help with this need also.

As of 2004, this business, in Camarillo, California, had 35 employees and was a $10 million-a-year company diverting 1,300 tons of silicon annually from landfills.