Recycling Computer components

[Mercutio]

Does anyone actively recycle computer parts? The kind of recycling that's done for end-of-life parts, not "I swapped my old video card into one of my older computers."

Dell and HP both have recycling services. Of course, if you visit their sites, you REALLY have to poke around to find anything about this stuff. I had better luck with google than on-site search features.

I threw a bunch of monitors into a dumpster over the weekend - a bunch of older 15" displays. The whole time I was doing that, I was thinking to myself, "Gee, it'd really sound stupid if I told someone that it'll cost $25 to toss one of these things."

But that's the responsible thing to do, right?

There's a consumer-education issue here, that computers shouldn't just get tossed, but does anyone really care?

 

[Buck]

Most people don't even know that computers shouldn't get tossed. I usually cannibalize everything that still works, and then toss the enclosure if it is not worth keeping. Monitors I bring to the county dump. Any PCBs that don’t work get tossed into the trash at home (which is probably wrong, but I don’t recall my local trash service outlining that, they just mentioned about monitors).

 

[jtr1962]

Places exist that take your old computers and either refurbish them to give to those without machines, or recycle them properly if they're hopelessly outmoded. Two in NYC are Per Scholas and the Lower East Side Ecology Center(email: oreinc@earthlink.net). I'm sure similar organizations exist in the Chicago area. If those monitors you threw away worked, they may have been serviceable for someone's first system. I'm personally still using a nearly 5-year old 15" monitor. I plan to get a 19" flat screen CRT when I can make a little more room and have about $200 cash to play with, but I'll still keep my 15" to hook to another system.

I personally look at machines thrown by the curb and take out whatever is serviceable. I don't bother with anything older than a Pentium any more, though.

 

[blakerwry]

I personally look at machines thrown by the curb and take out whatever is serviceable. I don't bother with anything older than a Pentium any more, though.

same here jtr. -I'm not below dumpster diving.


At work we still mainly use SVGA 15" CRTs... We could have used some of those monitors man. (let us throw out the ghetto ones we have)


Come to think of it.. alot of the people I talk to at work are getting rid of perfectly usable pentium MMX/pII /pIII computers. Makes me wish I could setup a foundation to collect those old computers instead of them being tossed or put in the basement until they truely are obsolete.


I think it's fine to toss anything except the monitor.. the problem with the monitor is that it comtains so much lead... I think all the toxins associated with the rest of the computer are made during the manufacturing process and are not an issue for end tossers like ourselves.

 

[freeborn]

My work recycles a lot of PCBs and other components so I generally bring in my refuse from home and then clean my lab. We have to separate PCBs from the rest but it all gets hauled off by some recycling folks (at least they claim they recycle!). I don't know the name of the company we use though but at least I know they exist.

Free

 

[Mickey]

I had to dispose of a couple old monitors about a year ago. I found a local place that refurbishes and donates to schools/charities that which still works, and recycles that which doesn't. The monitors cost me $25/apiece, I believe.

At work, PCB's are separated from scrap metal for recycling.

 

[Santilli]

Getting rid of stuff, really sucks.

As a school teacher at a ghetto school, I couldn't get the frigging people that disposed of the computers to give me a call. Most likely, the pricks
have their own way of making money on the disposal(Vallejo).

I was REALLY good at putting together broken computers out of junk.
I did it with 9 computers, and had em up and running, despite a bitch for a teaching assistant, a racist principal, and many other screwed up district in a really screwed school, Mount Diablo High School.

May they rot...

Gs

 

[blakerwry]

putting together broken computers out of junk

Hey, that's a trick, but can you put together working computers from junk?

j/k... aparently the anger sharks are swimming as you fondly reminise about the old days.

 

[Santilli]

Yep: Anger getting the better part of the post. I remember my principal,
who was trying to f... me, coming in, and seeing 9 working computers, after she had stone walled any requests for any supplies.


She WAS pissed. You could tell on her face.

No, "What a miracle involved".

Her name is damn, I can't remember. I blocked it out. Mind really does get rid of bad experiences....

Anyway, she's the current principal at Mount Diablo High School.


The weirdest experience I've had was being interviewed for another position with the school district, even after the bitch black balled me.

I sat there, realizing that I did not want to work in Mount Diablo School District, ever again, and, as I realized this, I really tanked the interview.

I just kept thinking of the bitches face, when she walked in, and saw the
work I had done, represented by 9 working computers, and students really enjoying working on them, and her desire that I fail at my position.

F... Her.

And, I never would.

gs

 

[CityK]

Does anyone actively recycle computer parts? The kind of recycling that's done for end-of-life parts

Yes, but I have found that information about the few companies that actively make a living off recycling computer end products is generally hard to come by. Even free municipal government programs, like the one available in Toronto, get no advertisement. Next to no one is aware that such programs exist. And any mention of them is buried deep within the city's website.

There was a company here in Toronto (called something like EMS) that was showcased once last year on one of the shows found on the Canadian edition of the Discovery Channel. They were using some sort of seperator machine that all I can say was a pretty amazing piece of equipment - I have no clue as too the exact complexities involved, but the general principal as I understood it was absolute crushing and then seperation of even the smallest particles by weight and some sort of quick molecular analysis (i.e detection of gold, silver, lead blah blah blah). This thing was literaly being feed a conveyer belt of desktop machines and out the other ends came all the metals and plastics very accurately compacted and sorted. I believe the next stage involved chemical treatment of some of the recovered parts (like the PCBs) for extraction of the precious or base metals contained within the layers. Some of the processes I seem to recall they did in house, while many others were performed by companies to which they sold the unprocessed scrap. For example, large metal companies like Placer Dome, Inco, Barrick Gold etc. etc. would take the metals and smelt them down for reuse. It was explained that, from the mining companies perspective, this is an extremely cheap way of producing their product, as opposed to mining for ore. I was really impressed by the whole efficiency of the operation - even stuff like the plastics from bezels was ending up being reused somehow.

I think it's fine to toss anything except the monitor.. the problem with the monitor is that it comtains so much lead... I think all the toxins associated with the rest of the computer are made during the manufacturing process and are not an issue for end tossers like ourselves.

Noooooo! There is plenty of toxic heavy metals contained in stuff like PCBs. The trash coming from the computer industry and ending up in garbage dumps poses a significant environmental and health problem...maybe not this day, but there will likely be one in the future.

 

[blakerwry]

i wonder if that's still the case today. I thought the PCB was made out of plastic or some organic material and that there were metal traces made primarily from aluminum. Soldered places would probably have a tin/lead mix.

 

[jtr1962]

PCBs are generally made of epoxy. The traces are copper(for maximal conductivity). Solder is generally tin-lead although non-lead based solders are starting to be used. ICs themselves contain a host of toxic materials such as arsenic used as dopants. In short, they're far from benign.