Tech Trash Dealers Get With the Program to Salvage Old Computers

Tag : Ground Plastic

"It's hard to claim 100 percent, but we're very close," he said.
While Monitex accepts drop-offs from individuals, the vast majorityof its equipment comes from companies that specialize in largecorporate renovations. When a big business decides to upgrade itscomputers, it typically hires a company to bring in the new andhaul out the old. That kind of company works with Monitex, whichpays for the monitors it can reuse and charges to reprocess theother material for recycling.
Monitex has received material from every state but California,which has its own state-mandated laws about computer recycling.
Monitex gets between three and 10 truckloads of tech trash a day,which adds up to more than 80,000 items per month. Workers quicklyseparate the keyboards and processors from the monitors. About 5percent of the monitors are in such good shape that they can beresold as is. About 65 percent have CRTs that are still good enoughto refurbish. The remaining 30 percent are broken down into theirparts -- glass and metals -- and recycled as raw materials.
For all the technical sophistication of the material, the processis astonishingly low-tech. Human eyes and hands (aided by a fewpower tools) are still the best way to evaluate the material andtake it apart, Mr. Segovia said.
BY THE NUMBERS: Things you can get from that old box
-- An average PC (not including the monitor) is typically 40percent steel, 30 percent to 40 percent plastic,
10 percent aluminum and 10 percent other metals, including copper,gold, silver, cadmium and platinum.
-- Each cathode ray tube monitor contains 4 to 6 pounds of lead.
-- Some studies estimate that as much as 75 percent of old, usedequipment is in storage, where it takes up space and becomes moreobsolete and less valuable.
-- Calculating by population, it is estimated that 1.5 millioncomputers are discarded in Texas annually, with roughly 162,000recycled, leaving more than 1.3 million units assumed to be storedor sent to landfills.
SOURCE: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
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Source: The Dallas Morning News
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