Tin Technology, 31 Aug 2004

Making a business out of e-waste

by SOLDERTEC

An recycling business in the US is seeing significant successes in handling and disposing of electronic waste products in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.

Chicago based Intercon currently recycles between 200,000 to 400,000 pounds of e-waste each week, including computers, television sets and telecoms equipment.

Items are taken in by the company and then stripped down to component parts, and these components are then to private smelting operations for recycling. In some cases, Intercon pays to dispose of potentially hazardous materials, such as lead, chromium, cadmium, mercury and flame retardants found in plastics.

The lead solder commonly found in many electronic goods is reused in automotive production.

Customers are charged a fee to have their waste items recycled and Intercon also receives a small fee from smelters.

"People are surprised when they hear that companies pay to have their computers recycled," chief executive Brian Brundage told the Chicago Sun-Times. "But most consumer electronics actually have a negative value.

"The costs involved with processing are not offset by the value of the raw material constituents."

Intercon has been recycling e-waste since 1987, but has seen a significant increase in activity as electronic waste becomes more common.

It has recently been estimated that consumer electronics accounts for 70 per cent of heavy metals, including 40 per cent of the lead in landfills, and the practice of shipping such waste to Asia has raised further concerns.

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