Following the Crowd

For computer recyclers, a lack of conformity in various components is causing headaches with dismantling.

In the electronics recycling industry, fitting in is a big problem. No one wants to deal with those “black sheep” materials or those that do not conform to the popular masses, but yet it seems manufacturers want to be identifiable and individual. Each part from each manufacturer can be as different as the next. A lack of standardization in parts, such as fasteners and plastics, is making computer recycling a time consuming endeavor.

As more computers enter the waste stream, electronics recyclers search for more efficient ways to disassemble the units for recycling, and a major issue they are dealing with is lack of standardization in units, ranging from types of plastics used to the kinds and number of screws. Often some sort of standardization in the industry, whether making units easier to take apart or using more uniform plastics, could make both the manufacturing and end-of-life management of machines easier and more cost efficient.

A PERFECT WORLD

Because there are often recoverable materials within a computer that is obsolete in the computing world, manual disassembly is the route many recyclers take to recover items such as hard drives, CD-ROMs and disk drives. Thus, a lack of standardization can lead to time consuming efforts.

“There are two aspects we look at a lot,” says Craig Boswell, vice president of HOBI International Inc., Dallas, when looking at standardization in the computer manufacturing industry. “And one is that you are going to impact your disassembly time, and with PCs that is a significant issue because there is enough recoverable material that you are not going to be grinding them up.”

One issue that Boswell says electronics equipment designers often do not look at is the unit’s end of life, or how easy it will be to take apart in the end. They are more concerned with, understandably, selling that product to the consumer, not what will happen to the unit after that same consumer is done with it. And, one must look at how the machine is going to be disposed of. If a pager, for example, is going to end up being ground up to be recycled, it is not worth the time to make the casings easier to snap off, he says.

“Secondly, typically there are recoverable things and there are hazardous materials that must be recovered before the unit is ground (up),” he says. “Fasteners can be a significant issue. The time it takes to change a tool can easily increase disassembly time. It is such a simple thing to use a standard fastener.”

In addition to the number or kind of fasteners, factors such as the type of screw used and the method of disassembly can be a factor, he says. Hex screws tend to strip out more easily than Phillips screws when using air tools.

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE

Often, what makes end-of-life management easier for recyclers can also make the manufacturing of the unit easier as well. These two issues can work hand in hand with each other, Boswell says. “In most cases,” he says, “if the designer went through a good design-for-manufacturing analysis he would flesh out a lot of the design disassembly issues.”

“Things that affect manufacturing affect design for disassembly,” he says. “They tend to dovetail. There are a lot of things done for better repairability—such as, in PCs, going to a drive module that is a quick release module. That was done for upgrade ability but also helps us out tremendously. You can get those hard drives out much quicker. That is an example of all three issues working together,” Boswell says.

But, as he points out, designing something that someone will purchase is a much higher on the priority list than designing something that can be easily taken apart.

When engineers design a machine, often the same issues that make for a well-designed product can also make for a product well designed for disassembly. This can make recovering hazardous materials and other components much easier and more efficient.

Standardization among the major competitors in the computing world would be an ideal situation, but not a likely one, says Charles Beckman, vice president, sales, Noranda Inc., Toronto. “It would be fantastic if they would standardize everything,” he says, “but in the reality of a competitive market—I don’t think they ever will. Everyone wants to make a product that does the same thing, but make it as cheap as possible. If you have a company that makes one million units and one who makes 100,000 units, the one million producer is going to get preferred pricing. I don’t see that ever changing.”

A SUPERFICIAL MATERIAL

Another problem-causing material in the disassembly of computers is plastics, including trying to identify types of plastic by sight. And after identifying what type of plastic a particular casing may be, gathering enough of that material to make it economical to sell or recycle the material becomes another challenge.

“We get monitor casings made out of ABS, we get them out of polystyrene, ABS/PS and PS/ABS” says Barry Ford, production manager of A&B Recycling, Oglethorpe, Ga. “And you would think some of those materials are the same, but they are not. Instead of two plastics streams, I have four. It is very difficult to find someone who is using those and then have to save them for a long time to get enough quantity.”

The sorting problem with plastics becomes tricky especially in the recycling stage, he says. “It really is a headache when we get to the recycling stage with so many variables each manufacturer has.”

Rodney Dean, vice president of The Oak Ridge National Recycle Center, Oak Ridge, Tenn., says the labeling, or often incorrect labeling of plastics, can cause problems when trying to recycle the material. The time and machinery needed to sort plastics can often end up being costly.

The center is setting up a $2 million system to shred plastics garnered from monitor casings. The plastic will be shred into pieces smaller than a quarter of an inch. “If the plastic was all of one chemistry, we wouldn’t need to do that,” Dean says.

And although correctly labeling the plastics could help some, when mass processing plastics, small, often hard-to-find labels would not speed up the process. Some companies are moving to automated systems that can detect what kind of plastic a specific piece may be.

Dean says the low value that plastics brings in is a problem as well. And with many other recyclables, such as monitor glass, the cost of transportation can drain profits before the material even reaches its final destination. “The problem is there are very few companies that separate plastics and the value of the plastic doesn’t even cover the freight to get it out there,” he says.

SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Ideally for recycling purposes, all computer manufacturers would use the same fasteners and would use the same materials while still designing their products to have a distinct look to others in the field. But since we do not live in a Brave New World, one must hope for the next best realistic thing. That could be a system where each manufacturer, within their own company, makes fasteners more standard and components easier to retrieve.Standardizing plastics and materials types also would increase recyclability.

Another issue that is often in the forefront of recyclers’ minds, although quite often not manufacturers, is end of life management and the issue of product take-back. Robert Fox, president of Fox Electronics, San Jose, Calif., says built in product take back at the time of sale could help increase the ease of recycling computers and the frequency at which it is done.

“If a manufacturer built that cost into the cost of the system, then they wouldn’t have any recycling cost at the end of life. We have proposed to vendors that they take our pre-printed labels with a bar code and then stick it to their unit.”

The pre-printed bar codes, he mentions, would include an 800-number that consumers could call once they opt to dispose of the unit.

Information on shipping the unit or pick-up would be provided, the machine recovered and then the bar code would provide information to the manu-facturer about the computer.

Unfortunately, Fox has not met with the same enthusiasm from manu-facturers about the idea, many citing concerns about whether the business would still be operating years later when consumers would likely dispose of their computers.

Fox does have one manufacturer that takes its own equipment off the market once it has reached its end of life. “They don’t want it out there competing with (their new product),” he says. “It is more of a marketing thing, and it works out well, although there is a lot of database management involved with the program.”

At the present time, a solution to making the recycling of computers easier for recyclers—while still being an economical venture for manu-facturers—has not been found, Noranda’s Beckman says. “I don’t see one universal solution. It hasn’t shown itself yet.” RT

The author of the article is the associate editor of Recycling Today. She can be reached at mgoodrich@RecyclingToday.com.