RECYCLING TODAY’S PLASTICS RECYCLING CONFERENCE: Electronic Recovery

Speakers at Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show spoke on a number of issues related to electronics recycling from logistics to marketing plastics from the devices at the show in late June.

Dan Barrett, manager of business planning with the United States Postal Service (USPS), said the organization has identified the opportunity to provide logistics services to facilitate electronics recycling. Its decision was affected by a number of market factors.

Electronics are the fastest growing form of solid waste in the United States, Barrett said. While the material makes up 2 percent of the waste stream currently, it accounts for 70 percent of landfill toxicity, he added. In addition to these factors, the USPS was encouraged to get involved with electronics recycling because it presents a corporate citizenship opportunity. The material also has aftermarket value, and legislation is spurring the recovery of these devices.

While electronics reuse and recycling is preferable to landfilling, it also represents an opportunity for the USPS. “The right thing to do fits into our core business,” Barrett said. The USPS is an ideal organization to handle the logistics of electronics recycling because it provides convenient retail access and drop-boxes and also because it makes daily deliveries, he added.

Among the products that the USPS is promoting to OEMs and electronics recyclers are merchandise return services like those used by many cell phone manufacturers, parcel return services and new low-cost options.

According to Barrett, the USPS is mobilizing “products that are easy to use and drive costs down for recyclers.”

Timothy Osgood, director of corporate recycling for Intercon Solutions, an electronics dismantler based in Chicago Heights, Ill., focused his presentation on the recovery of plastics from electronics.

Intercon Solutions sends the plastics it recovers from its disassembly operation on to the composite lumber industry. Currently, Intercon pays its consumers to accept these materials.

Osgood said that plastics comprise 15 percent to 30 percent of electronics, adding that the percentage of plastic in these devices will increase as technology advances. Intercon receives nearly 250,000 pounds of material per week, 50,000 pounds of which are plastics, with ABS, HIPS and PPO being among the most common.

According to Osgood, hand demanufacturing of electronics allows for better grading and sorting of the constituent materials, and an electronics recycler’s ability to develop downstream relationships and end markets can determine the company’s success.

Plastics that have been recovered from electronics are currently being used in incineration for energy recovery or as a flux in the precious metals smelting process. The material can also be recovered and returned to the manufacturing stream or incorporated into composite lumber, asphalt and cement applications, Osgood said.

Osgood closed by saying that new technology and regulations will hold new opportunities for electronics recycling, particularly the plastics they generate.

Finally, Mark Matza, executive vice president of Fortune Plastics & Metals Midwest, Naperville, Ill., addressed export issues surrounding electronics.

Matza said that Fortune exports to China “because it is a preferable alternative to landfill.” He also said that most manufacturing occurs in that nation and that the country's manufacturers require raw materials.

He also advised attendees, “Beware the broker,” adding that their only connection to the consumer is cash and that they are often pressured to buy and therefore tend to overpay for material. Additionally, brokers may not know what ultimately will happen to the material.

Currently, China does not accept printed circuit boards, computers, printers, key boards, monitors and monitor glass, Matza said. 
        

Matza also stressed that opportunities exist to remarket and reuse electronic devices, encouraging attendees to look at end-of-life electronics as they do used cars.

Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show was June 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in suburban Chicago.