As new technology arises on what seems to be a day-to-day basis, proper ways to dispose of the yesterday's technology becomes a major issue.
Becky Harwell is the owner of Axcess Technologies located in Austin, Texas. As the owner of an electronic recycling center for ten years, Harwell has advice for consumers on what components and computers are recyclable.
"We can recycle every kind of computer that's ever been manufactured," she said. "First and foremost, recycling is only one function that this company provides. What we really do is try to provide a complete solution for all obsolete or excess electronics. It can be any kind of electronics. It may be new equipment that's excess, or it may be old ancient dinosaur type stuff."
"If it's newer equipment, our first plan of action is to find or establish a resale market for that equipment," she said. "We want to keep that equipment in its intended form. We want to extend the life of those products. So we go all out in the world looking for potential markets for this equipment. If none exists, then we start looking at the potential for recovery of either parts or components."
"If you look at the example of a PC itself, once you open that computer, there are a variety of components," she added. "One of the components is the power supply. The power supply in and of itself could be resold. If not, there's copper recovery and other metals in that power supply that could be recycled."
"The boards themselves are wonderful examples of precious metal recovery items," Harwell continued. "Not only in the gold contacts that are typically on the board, but in some of the integrated circuitry itself there is very high grade gold bonding wires. So, those are the types of things that we're looking for. So, once you move outside of the realm of resale activities, then we really focus on the commodities market as they relate to: aluminum, all your non-ferrous metals, stainless steel, copper, and then the precious metals, which are predominantly gold, platinum, palladium."
So, can every part of a computer be recycled?
"There's really nothing out of a computer that goes to waste," Harwell said. "The cables are all recyclable. The packaging equipment that it comes in is also something that we recycle. Even if it comes in cardboard packaging, we break down the cardboard, bale it, and recycle that as well. If there's any kind of foam inserts or anything like that, we recycle that. Shrink wrap, we recycle that."
"The only thing that we don't have an active recycling operation addressed for is paper," she said. "And it's because we receive so little of it in. Everything else, even down to the aluminum cans of the sodas that we drink inside the offices, is all recycled."
