Proven Formula

The shredding of automobiles, appliances and other bulky metals-heavy objects has a long history within the scrap industry.

Pioneers and long-time practitioners of auto shredding can recite a litany of changes and evolving techniques that have been learned during the course of decades when it comes to producing saleable commodities from this stream.

At American Electronics Recycling (AER), Sarasota, Fla., founders with a background in automotive shredding are attempting to build upon this experience to maximize the commodities-based return yielded from their electronics shredding operation.

SEEKING SCRAP. AER President and General Manager Peter Prinz, who has set up and oversees shredding operations at AER’s Sarasota facility, is a scrap industry veteran who throughout his career has helped set up and manage several automobile shredding facilities.

AER’s vice president, B. A. (Trip) Alford, is also a scrap industry veteran who still carries responsibilities with AER’s parent company—scrap recycling firm ProTrade Steel.

Hudson, Ohio-based ProTrade was founded in 1994 as a ferrous scrap brokerage. Scrap trading remains a core activity for ProTrade, which has five brokerage offices serving some 70 consumers of ferrous scrap.

This decade, however, the company has expanded into processing and physically handling scrap. ProTrade now operates five processing facilities in Ohio and West Virginia, including in Charleston, W. Va., where the company is installing an auto shredder.

ProTrade’s search for more metal and a philosophy seeking corporate growth led it to start American Electronics Recycling LLC in 2003, with operations in Sarasota commencing the next year. The shredder in Sarasota was installed in late 2006. AER has also opened a second collection facility in Jacksonville, Fla.

The shredding system that Prinz, Alford and AER have set up in Sarasota would probably seem familiar to scrap recyclers who have spent time at auto shredding plants.

Once units arrive at the plant, the majority are designated for shredding. "We ship commodities overseas, not units," says Prinz.

Prinz realizes that many electronics recycling companies entered the industry with the very different objective of harvesting chips, components and refurbishing units. ProTrade and AER, however, have "made the big commitment" to "make the commodities."

AER does operate a tech room to refurbish what Prinz calls "a low double-digit percentage" of its material. AER can wipe hard drives to DOD specifications in its tech room if asked to do so.

But with its concentration on shredding, AER can approach the electronic scrap procurement process differently. The company considers scrap for its materials content, not necessarily because it carries a more recent processor or hard drive. "Chips don’t mean anything to me," says Prinz.

Additionally, the company is not only willing but eager to offer complete, verifiable guarantees of destruction to its clients.

"People who are concerned about security, including many large corporations and businesses, want proof that includes a recording of the destruction as it takes place," notes Alford.

How that destruction is carried out in AER’s Sarasota shredding plant is another aspect of its business where the company draws knowledge from its auto shredding industry background.

WASTE TO SCRAP. The term e-waste is sometimes used to describe the stream of obsolete computers, monitors, printers, televisions, office equipment and small appliances that is not wanted at traditional scrap yards.

In some cases, this material is also not wanted at landfills because of the presence of prohibited substances like lead, mercury or beryllium.

A best case scenario for this stream of material may well be one that matches the current fate of automobiles and appliances—the shredding and separation of desirable commodities and the segregation and safe disposal of materials with no end market.

AER has set up its plant to follow that model. It is a comparison that is not completely apples-to-apples. Whereas scrap recyclers will pay to bring in autos and appliances to feed to their shredders, that model will not currently work on the electronics side.

What comes into AER and other electronics shredding plants can still be viewed as waste, and the generators are charged accordingly for associated disposal services.

However, the goal of AER is to recover as much as is possible from this stream as marketable scrap, and the company is deploying an array of equipment to accomplish just that.

The company’s inbound shipping dock receives trailer loads of material to be destroyed. Incoming loads include items ranging from metals-heavy objects, such as electrical control panels, to predominantly plastic computer peripherals, such as keyboards.

Deciding when to feed materials to the shredder is where Prinz has put a great deal of thought, to the point that he labels this part of the process as proprietary.

The goal, however, is to batch-feed the shredding plant so the array of downstream sorting equipment can be fine-tuned to best handle the resulting shredded stream for the maximum recovery of clean scrap.

On the plastics side of the equation, Prinz says a key to harvesting marketable plastic scrap is "batch feeding" the shredder units with like housings or casings, such as ABS or HIPS of a similar color. Such upfront sorting, he says, is much easier than achieving effective post-shred sorting on the plastics side.

MARKETS TO SERVE. Prinz says he has confidence that the system AER has set up in Sarasota can yield streams of marketable metal that can meet the same quality levels produced at auto shredding plants and wire chopping operations.

A visitor to the plant in early April would have noticed bales of mixed metals staged near the infeed conveyor for later shredding and automated sorting. "They’ll get better separation of materials here than at most auto shredding plants," says Prinz of the customers that sent the bales.

A challenge, as it can be for so many recycling companies, is to ensure there is enough suitable material coming through the front door.

Prinz remarks that several other electronics recyclers have set up shredding plants in Florida, making for a competitive market. However, he believes two trends are working in favor of improved future material flows.

The first trend is toward security, both of confidential information and of technological trade secrets.

"Two years ago, a lot of this equipment was sent overseas," Prinz says of the pallets of obsolete equipment staged near his infeed conveyor. Much of it went to China, he notes, where it could be reverse engineered for purposes of making illegal mass copies. For OEMs this is unacceptable.

Beyond patent or trademark protection, Prinz and Alford believe that a movement away from asset recovery and toward assured destruction is also being brought about by fears of identity theft.

Corporations, government agencies and even individuals have become increasingly aware that old computers contain the type of information that can allow identity thieves to commit their crimes.

Alford sees the preference for shredding vs. less destructive forms of disposal growing. "Banks and government agencies here know hard drives are a security issue, but I think the concern is filtering down to all types of businesses," he remarks.

And that realization could be leading to the second trend—more obsolete electronics coming out from hiding. "There are backlogs throughout the U.S.," says Alford.

While government agencies may be aware of the problem, that awareness in many cases has resulted in agencies storing obsolete equipment while waiting to find the right disposal solution. "In their mind, up until recently there has been no decent way to dispose of it," says Prinz.

AER has been working to convince the federal government’s General Services Administration (GSA) and other agencies that its destruction model offers a solution. In an effort led by Amber Costides, who is in charge of AER marketing and GSA contracts, the company has been staying in contact with the GSA and other federal agencies regarding the secure destruction of obsolete government assets. "They need an outlet for it," says Prinz.

Referring to the existence of some 80 storage facilities with electronics currently managed by the federal government, Prinz says, "We’ve been studying their process and working to get on the GSA bid list even before we had our machinery in place."

Having several large accounts to feed the shredder is just one of several ways that AER hopes to replicate the scrap industry model for the recycling of obsolete electronics.

The trend seems clear, says Alford, pointing to "large corporations and businesses [that] are concerned about security." Shredding leaves no doubt that what needs to be destroyed has certainly met its end.

Prinz and Alford see an industry sector that may well take shape in a way that mirrors how the scrap recycling industry is layered and segmented and operates regionally.

Electronics recyclers with the knowledge and willingness to harvest components and to refurbish some units should make ideal "feeder yards" to forward the rest of their material to shredding plants like AER’s, as Alford and Prinz see it.

A noticeable and rapid shift of emphasis by owners of obsolete electronics away from asset recovery and toward secure destruction is well underway, say Prinz and Alford. It is a trend that he sees as playing directly into AER’s strength as an operator of efficient shredding plants designed for both secure destruction and maximum secondary commodities recovery value.

"What took the scrap industry 30 years to develop, in terms of shredding plant technology, may take just five years for electronics recyclers," ventures Alford.

The author is editor in chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.