Environmentally Friendly Ways We Process discarded Computers and Monitors
Reuse
Reuse is the greatest form of recycling. The computers are taken from the working environment and are immediately passed on to secondary users. This makes the technology affordable to community-based organizations (non-profits) and third world countries. Reusing a computer prolongs its life another 3 to 5 years. 0% goes to landfill.
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The computers and monitors are tested to determine if they will be reused, refurbished, remanufactured, or recycled, depending upon their condition (fig.1). If they can be re-used, they are cleaned, all data is erased, the hard drive is reformatted, and they are re-packaged and shipped to Asia, sold locally, or donated to local non-profit organizations (fig.2).
Refurbishment
Refurbished computers and monitors are those working and non-working pieces of equipment which are in need of only minor or cosmetic repair. They are refurbished, tested and cleaned to become reusable. Less then 1% goes to the landfill.
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The computer monitor is painted to create new clean finish (fig. 1)
The refurbished monitors are tested before being re-sold (fig 2).
Remanufacture
Remanufactured monitors are converted into working monitors or televisions. We take out the cathode ray tube (CRT), polish it (fig.1,2), attach a new circuit board, attach the new front cover panel (made out of 30% re-cycled plastic), the focus is automatically adjusted for sharp picture quality (fig.4), and then it is burn tested for 24 hours (fig.5). If the remanufactured monitor passes the tests, the back cover is installed, and the monitor is ready (fig. 6) to be packaged and shipped. CRTs that do not sharply focus are converted to televisions.
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Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors also can be remanufactured into products that use LCDs including calculators, notebooks panels, and new LCD monitors.
In this process only 2% go to the landfill.
Recycle
Most of the parts from the non-working computers recycled.
- Plastic casing from monitors and computers are shredded, sorted, and converted. (i.e. plastic lumber and decorative landscaping stones).
- Heavy metals are recycled for future uses in new computers.
- Monitors with screen burn and non repairable CRTs will go through the conventional process for glass recycling and heavy metals recycling.
- Printers are recycled for plastics, metals, toners, and ink cartridges.
- Computer peripherals and miscellaneous electronics approximately 70% plastic, 30% non-ferrous and precious metal bearing material are recycled. (i.e. Circuit Board, Aluminum, copper, gold, silver, etc)
Only 5% goes to the landfill.
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Parts are sorted for recycling: cable (fig.1), circuit boards (fig.2), fans (fig.3), and power supplies (fig.4).