#1< China

The “c” word in the recycling industry is China. Regardless of their astronomical consumption, incalculable exports, and titan production no one wants to admit going there, being there, and God forbid sending scrap materials there, let alone e-waste in any form.

Unfortunately this paradigm doesn’t run parallel with the reality of our North American existence. China produces the goods, and North Americans buy them, and buy them, and buy them. China then produces more goods, because every single North American needs every single thing they see on TV. The shortfall is China’s local resource base, which doesn’t meet the demands applied. North America however is ripe with primary, and yes, secondary resources. Containers arrive full of doo-dads, gadgets, and game boys and return with the exact same thing, shredded, baled, and pulverized.

Why you ask with our infinitesimal recycling technology? Because at the end of the day the human body is the ultimate machine. It learns, has opposable thumbs, sees full colour spectrums, and can use almost an unlimited array of tools, at least according to the Chinese E-Waste HR manual.

Why are we ashamed? Because in additional to relative harmless and rudimentary separation techniques China also employs some rather distasteful recovery methods, circa mid 1300’s. We’re talking about open air burnings, drums full of acid, and hot plates of melting solder. You can almost taste the cancer.

Regardless of how you approach any situation: Yes, there is always a better way. And no, it’s probably not going to change soon or quickly.

Chinese shame should be put aside so we can focus on Chinese development. Many Chinese companies are employing North American standards alongside China’s unlimited workforce, and they are blooming regardless of the current economic state.

#2: Commingled Product (The E-Waste Salad)

I’ve yet to find a facility that doesn’t produce some type of liable mixed materials. Either sweepings from shredding, bag house fluff, or a horrible little mix of polymeric madness. This general e-waste salad is building up all over North America.

Some are mixing it into their refinery goods AKA: sending it up the stack. Some are trying to sell it as copper bearing pickings to our ‘c’ word friends. Some are storing it religiously hoping that the precious metal content will eventually be of leverage against the high lead content for recovery. And some are spending millions trying to figure out how to process via pelletizing, briquetting, float sink process, catalytic pressure processing, or high compression moulding (floor mats anyone?).

I’ve seen all of these tried, and I don’t know of anyone actually running a successful commercial enterprise with one. At one point they even tried mixing into asphalt as aggregate. Yes, they had plasticy bendy roads that did great with freezing and thawing, and yes they where slippery as hell.

So what to do with our lead lined e-salad? If I knew I wouldn’t be writing blogs in Barrie, Ontario. I’d be living in my high compression moulded false brick home, heated with geothermal, and powered by the diesel recovered from my depolymerisation process.

I sincerely hope to see the day where a single facility puts out clean streams of all the products put into e-waste, which brings us to our last issue.

Electronics Manufacturers Hate the Environment

Hate is a strong word, and no, I’ve never heard anyone from any of the big brand manufacturers say they hate the environment. But actions speak louder than words don’t they?

Regardless of their environmental policies, web pages, speeches, boards of advisors, and the colour green on all their packages their final products are a recycler’s nightmare.

There are many topics to dissect here, but I’m going to focus on plastics. Plastics are difficult to recycle when you have a single stream, let alone a single contaminant. Unlike metals which can tolerate some contamination and can be purified via chemical and refining processes plastics are much more sensitive. They are the kid in school that would burst into tears if someone didn’t say their name right. Yes, that sensitive. A single piece of contamination can ruin entire melts permanently. Now let’s back up.

You buy a printer. It has an outer shell, buttons, a screen, some more buttons, and a bunch of little gears and runners inside all made of different plastics. In any given piece of technology you can have literally dozens of different polymers all made by different manufacturers. You now shred this printer in your first stage of e-waste recycling, and what do you get? Issue #2: E-waste salad.

Now, it is possible for manufacturers to use one or two types of polymers effectively or even introduce elements that support recycling separation. But they don’t. And why do you ask? Because they find the cheapest vendor for each specific part, and that vendor finds the cheapest plastic that meets the manufacturers’ minimum requirements.

Yes, I know they are trying to keep the lowest price possible to maintain competitiveness, but come on people. We’re literally choking the planet with our crap.

The solution: Manufacturers need to have a strict set of recycling standards put in place that control the base materials used in production. Also, every item that is manufactured should have a reported recovery value and de-manufacturing guide. If two different polymers are contained within close proximity separation alloys and additives should be introduced for eddy current and magnetic sorting.

If we can manufacture the technology, we can take it apart. We just need to coordinate the industries. Right now the recycling portion of the industry is regarded as an afterthought (and a marketing spin). It’s more than that.

Going forward secondary recovery will be the primary source for commodities.

It is amazing. Consider that “Local Scrap Guy”  in his pick-up with his 10 pounds of copper is instantly affected by the drop in copper prices. With the streamlining of global information, the aggressive procurement of primary and secondary materials, and international logistics network we move material like never before. We’re also impacted as never before.

The skyrocketing copper prices pulled scrap copper out of every field, corner, and ungaurded business or industrial complex. Many people in Canada have tried to pull the plug from their block heaters this winter only to find the cord missing, or cut. A local cell phone tower went down a few weeks ago, causing about 4 hours of service loss and costing $150,000 in damages. All for 10 feet of low grade insulated copper wire.

The local Police have had so many reports of stolen metal at this point your better off calling, well, anyone really. I promise you’ll get more of a response.

But now, the end of the story (for a short while). The world is flooded with copper. When you pair this with the cooling of the Chinese Export market you really put the brakes on. So if you have the cash: hold, hold, hold. And if you don’t: sell, sell, sell.

For all you mid sized copper buyers and brokers, may the peace of the Patron Saint of Copper Trading be with you.

Please excuse me, I have to try and convince my buyer that our current sales orders were dated for last week.

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Welcome to the 21st Century! Who knew that in less than 25 years a large portion of industrialized civilization would be semi-cyborg, decked out with anywhere from 6 – 30 pieces of integrated technology. And now, as each little plastic infused copper conundrum dies, breaks, or loses power where do we go? We recover our commodities of course. The ultimate goal of the electronics recycling industry is to have a method of reintegrating and reconstituting all the energies and products used to create our gadgetry. True energy cannot be created or destroyed, but how do you extract the copper out of my iPad? As with the skinning of cats, there are many answers. In the Americas we look to physical separation followed by heat and chemical processes. In China they rely on the brute force approach employing millions of hands with millions of tools. And everywhere else they simply burn it in open air, picking out the shiny bits from the ashes.

The moral of the story is that this is happening. We are in the first decade of what will be one of planets foremost industries in the following years. Simple math dictates that we need to find more efficient ways of recovering resources. E-Waste recycling yields 100 times more metals per ton using 1000 times less energy. Voila, now we just have to get good at it. At GreenGo Recycling Depot we are passionate about the evolution of this process, and strive to be at the forefront of the industry in all aspects. If you’re looking for a recycling partner, buyer, consultant, or marketer give us the opportunity to share our passion and grow your business!

PS: If someone from Africa or rural China is reading this, please stop burning e-waste in your backyard. If you look at jet streams and air flow on our little planet you can estimate that I’ll be breathing your flame retardants within the next couple months. I don’t appreciate this.

GreenGo is happy to announce that our new electronics surplus and salvage store is open for business: fromUforU. This is a unique approach to electronics sales, selling complete working items and offering surplus pieces and parts. If your looking for odd items, old hardware, or anything else with a cord, circuit-board or battery come on down and check us out.

We have one of everything and two of most! Please call for more information: (705) 722-8711

We currently have Computers fully loaded and ready to go starting at $80, laptops at $160.

See you soon!