Re-boot, Re-use, Recycle

The Sum of the Parts is Greater Than the Whole

Often a computer powered by a 486 processor is not worth much in today’s computing world—it is too under-powered to handle most current software programs and runs too slow for those accustomed to the speedier models now available. But instead of junking what seems like a useless machine, there is still life left in the unit if is left in the hands of a capable recycler. The unit can be disassembled and the components can be used in other computers. The sound card might not work, but maybe the CD-ROM drive is still in working order. Or the ram chips can be added to another machine for an added boost. All of these components have value to electronics recyclers. Ultimately, the machine can be stripped for components before it is mined for commodities such as gold and precious metals.

Demanufacturing computers is one method of recycling, done for component reuse or to recover precious metals, there can be economically viable reasons to “check under the hood” of obsolete PCs. United Recycling Industries Inc., Franklin Park, Ill., has several steps in the computer “food chain” to determine further usability or re-use.

Components that enter the facility are first checked for re-use potential. If that option is chosen, the machine’s hard drive is wiped clean, a few tweaks are made, and the computer is off to a new life. If reuse is not practical, says Bob Glavin, president of United Recycling, then the machine is demanufactured and the individual components are separated. Glavin says while some components in the machine may be unusable, there may be a one-gigabyte hard drive in there that has re-sale value. These are manually removed at workstations.

The machine then “keeps flowing down the food chain,” he says, to where the integrated circuit chips are removed for resale. “They may be using processors on that board that may not be usable, but it could be usable on another board.”

About 95% of the computer materials that enter the facility are recycled, ranging from the individual computer components—hard drives, CD-ROMs and circuit boards—to the plastic and metals that encase the unit. Even the cardboard boxes the computers come in are compacted and recycled.

A Virtual Gold Mine

Not only can the computer parts be reused or recycled, but those obsolete hard drives and other components can contain precious metals such as aluminum, tin, copper, and steel. Large quantities of equipment, however, must be collected to make such recovery efforts worthwhile or profitable most recyclers have determined.

United Industries is processing about two million pounds a month, Glavin says, through the demanufacturing side of the business. About 8,000 to 10,000 ounces of gold are being recovered a month, along with about 150,000 ounces of silver. Platinum is recovered at a rate of about 200 ounces a month and copper at half a million pounds a month, Glavin says. That is sold to local nonferrous scrap dealers. About 2-1/2 million pounds a month of material is taken in at United, with another 2,000 units of resellable equipment coming in.

Much of the feedstock that United receives comes from banks and other financial institutions that update computer equipment frequently because of ever-changing software upgrades and increasing technology needs.

BYTE-SIZED SHREDDED COMPUTERS

An alternative or later stage after manual demanufacturing is shredding the unit and separating the smaller pieces out. Shred Tech, Cambridge, Ontario, manufactures a unit that shreds computer equipment into pieces that can be sorted and recycled. Materials that can typically be recovered include brass, zinc and copper. Plastics are also separated.

Ken Lewis, technical sales for Shred-Tech, says the shredding takes place after the manual demanufacturing occurs, if a specific component is sought as a spare part or replacement. Components ranging from laptops to mainframes can be placed in the shredder, and then the materials are separated.

The machine is geared toward handling large quantities of computers, such as units that were formerly leased to businesses. Because the equipment is shredded, sensitive information such as financial records are guaranteed to be destroyed. “There is a lot of sensitive information and you can’t give that computer to just anybody,” Lewis says. “You want to make sure that any sensitive information is taken off and the machine is reduced so that you know that your computer is safely erased.”

Lewis says that a shredder is an efficient way to recycle large quantities of materials. “Those kinds of volumes, to take them apart I don’t think you would ever be able to put a dent in the recycling rate,” he says. “The only way to get rid of a large volume is to process them.”

The increasing number of leased computer units that become obsolete quickly to corporate clients creates a sufficient amount of feedstock for those shredding computers and other electronic components. And with even the federal government going to leased computers, lack of feedstock to feed shredding machines does not appear to be a problem now or in the near future.

Monitoring the Situation

While a computer can be taken apart or shredded with little concern to environmental hazards, monitors do not necessarily enjoy the same status. Recycling monitors becomes a much more complicated matter that takes more specialized knowledge and know-how. Components such as leaded glass and cathode ray tubes (CRTs) make dismantling, disposal or resource recovery more difficult to complete.

The glass on monitors is typically leaded glass that needs to be handled differently, says Cynthia Andela, president of Andela Recycling Limited, Richfield Springs, N.Y. The leaded glass and CRTs are what makes the recycling of monitors a costly production. In fact, while many consumers may balk at paying to have their monitor recycled, that fee is actually allowing many of the recyclers to at least break even in the venture.

“The reason the fee is charged is that to get rid of the glass is a negative cost,” Andela says. Enclosed systems that prevent the dust from the leaded glass from being exposed to people can be part of that added cost. The glass from monitors just can’t be crushed like other glass because dust could contain harmful components such as lead.

As with computer cases, plastic poses an end market problem as well with monitors because of different plastics being used.

Monitors have not been banned from landfills yet, but Andela says she has heard of landfills that have already refused them for fear of future bans on monitors coming with retroactive action. “I have heard that some private landfills have banned them,” she says. “A lot of people with the private landfills are taking the initiative to say that they don’t want it because of the liability. They don’t want large quantities.”

Andela says she sees the recycling of monitors increasing because there is enough value in salvaging the other parts of monitors to make it a worthwhile venture. “It’s a legitimate, payable business—you just have to set your price and look at your labor fees,” she says.

Beginning in January, the state of Massachusetts has adopted a ban on the disposal of CRTs, according to a Northeast Recycling Council newsletter. The lead in monitor glass may exceed the EPA’s hazardous waste toxicity levels for lead. A monitor may contain as much as six pounds of lead, which is used to shield users from electromagnetic radiation emitted by the CRT.

The cost to recycle CRTs, along with other computer components, appears to be dropping in Massachusetts, with CRT recycling falling to under $5 per unit, according to the Northeast Recycling Council, Brattleboro, Vt. About 84% of the 23,000 CRTs tracked by the group were recycled last year at permanent regional facilities.

Shipping out

While there is a lot of domestic electronics recycling in the U.S., some companies are exporting electronics to countries such as Asia once the collection is complete. Tung Tai Group, Burlingame, Calif., has a warehouse in San Jose and exports to several facilities in Asia. “About 80 to 90% of it gets exported,” says John Chen, executive vice president of Tung Tai Group. “Most of the corporations, such as those in Silicon Valley, want to keep their scrap domestic, but most of the electronic scrap you see going to the landfill gets exported simply because of the labor rates.”

Tung Tai dismantles electronic scrap that comes to its facilities by hand. This method results in very little debris generated because the machines can be thoroughly taken apart and there is no shredder residue or extra waste generated, he says. The company has 28 to 30 million pounds of electronic scrap enter its facilities each year, which it exports to Asia. Dismantling equipment in China by hand is much less costly, Chen notes, due to the affordability of labor.

The company also dismantles monitors by hand. The plastic is taken off and in China the glass can be used for a road compound or goes to smelters. The main hazard with the monitor recycling is the leaded glass, which is a hazardous material.

Chen says areas such as Silicon Valley, Chicago, Boston and Texas have large supplies of electronic scrap generated because of the high concentration of either computer-related industries or manufacturing.

Having Some Standards

Manual demanufacturing can be a moneymaker, but there are several stumbling blocks that can slow the process down. With computers being complicated machines, they also contain an array of materials—plastics, metals and glass—and labeling the plastics or using uniform materials could make a big difference when it comes to recycling, Glavin says. When it comes to designing materials to be more easily recycled, stamping the type of plastic on the unit would help greatly with sorting and segregating materials, he says.

The same goes for the materials used to hold a machine together—or the nuts and bolts of the unit. Standardizing the screws and bolts used on machines would mean not having to change tools as often which becomes a time saver for manual demanufacturing. Just to crack open a computer case may involve more than three kinds of screws and numerous tools. Reducing the number and types of fastening devices could speed up the process. “All of this wouldn’t increase the recyclability, but it would make it a lot easier,” Glavin says. RT

The author is the Assistant Editor of Recycling Today.