Resurrecting the Computer Graveyard

by Cheryl L. McAdams

What eventually happens to all the old monitors, circuit boards, and other peripheral computer equipment when they die or simply become obsolete? Disposal of this roadkill from the information superhighway has been made difficult by a U.S. EPA landfill ban on some circuit boards with high lead content, and other computer parts that contain what some call dangerous amounts of toxic substances.

With few other options, most companies simply pile the obsolete equipment into the spare, empty office down the hall. Often referred to as computer or dinosaur "graveyards," these increasingly numerous office purgatories can seem like permanent fixtures in the modern workplace.

Not to worry, according to a new and expanding branch of the recycling industry. While there are some companies cashing in on the refurbishment and resale of these old computers, a growing number are successfully recycling the component parts -- selling the plastics, metal, and circuit board -- and doing it safely.

One such company, Advanced Recovery, Inc. (Belleville, N.J.), is concentrating on the health risks involved in computer recycling. The cathode ray tubes (CRTs) -- commonly referred to as monitors -- have high levels of lead in the glass, and mercury, cadmium, and phosphorous in the vacuum tube, says Eric Buechel, company president.

The gold content in older mainframes is an easy moneymaker, Buechel says. Handling the CRTs, however, is not. "What I find to be the most important part of the business is to be able to recover the components that nobody wants or nobody wants to deal with," he says. For example, he says, "I see the CRT as being the worst piece of equipment in the industry and of the most concern to me."

According to Buechel there are 300 million CRT tubes being used in North America. And every year 500,000 tons of additional glass is manufactured for more tubes.

Buechel hopes to educate the haulers on exactly what they are collecting and the potential harmful effects caused by collection. Mainframes are not the problem, he says -- a typical mainframe can be disassembled in less than an hour. But printers, modems, monitors, and other peripheral equipment take much more time.

“What we have to do is inform and educate the people who are in direct contact with these materials, which is the waste hauler. Healthwise, the tubes are the biggest problem," he says.

According to Nick Albano, vice president for Advanced, "Disposing of household waste such as aluminum cans, glass, and paper is rather simple and straightforward. Properly breaking down and recycling computers and electronic equipment is technically more complex and potentially more dangerous due to the toxic nature of the material they require to function. These cannot be handled by a local recycling center."

Another focus of the company is on the reuse of the raw materials found in the computers. "We take them apart, and crush up the metals in our compacters, and separate the circuit boards and put those in an area so we can refine them," Buechel says.

Advanced, a nine-person company, handles approximately 400,000 pounds of computers and other electronic materials per month. "I work right along with my guys," Buechel says. There's just so much coming in, so much you have to know, being that it's such a new field."

The computers are pulled apart and stripped of metals. The semiconductor chips are sold to parts wholesalers and computer maintenance shops. Functioning disc drives are used as spares, circuit boards are refined to recover precious metals, plastic insulation is stripped from copper cables, old microprocessors and memory chips end up in electronic toys, high-grade plastics are recycled, and low-grade mixed plastics are incinerated for their energy. The recovered copper, metals, and components are sold to help pay for the costly treatments of batteries, CRTs, and mixed plastic.

The thermally treated plastic is ground up, Buechel says. "We get about six cents per pound for the therm plastic -- shipping it out to purchasers in New York and Texas," he says. Advanced handles approximately 20,000 pounds of thermoplastic per month, he adds.

Another company, R. Frazier, Inc. (Salem, Va.), says it will have processed approximately 3,000 computer mainframes in 1994. The company had a projected yearend revenue of $8 million in early December. According to the company, only 3% of total volume is sent to landfills.

According to an article in Financial Times, Denmark, France, and Austria are among the European countries currently considering specific legislation for electronic waste. And, while manufacturers fear a patchwork of conflicting national schemes, most feel that, in terms of tonnage, electronic waste is less of a problem than other types of wastes. Manufacturers are also becoming conscious of the ecological image and contents of products.

A recent survey by the German environmental organization Bund, the Times reports, reveals that most manufacturers of personal computers now use recycled plastics, have banned CFCs and solvent-based paints, use snap-together construction (for easier dismantling), and mark new plastic parts for recycling and reuse.

Manufacturers, however, are less enthusiastic about taking back products that are currently reaching the end of their useful lives. These items were not designed or built with recycling in mind.

Christopher Goodhue, research director for the Gartner Group, Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based consulting firm, predicts that 50 to 70 million personal computers alone will have to be retired and disposed of between 1992 and 1996. A two-year-old Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh) study predicted that 150 million personal computers will be heading to landfills by 2005 because they cannot be easily recycled.

Dr. Richard Luthy, head of Carnegie Mellon's civil engineering department, received a $1.9-million grant from IBM in 1993 to study computer design methods to simplify their recycling and reuse.

U.S. computer companies have some catching up to do if they want to move toward recyclable computers, Luthy says. "My experience is that they're trying to get ready," he says.

A joint industry/government study released in early 1993 concluded that developing a "green work station" that was easier to upgrade or recycle is now "both a business and [a] technological issue, not simply a mission for the environmentalist movement."

The study, completed in March 1993 and titled Environmental Consciousness: A Strategic Competitiveness Issue for the Electronics and Computer Industry was formulated to address issues and serve as a guide while computer companies and those in related industry initiated their efforts.