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I am in the e-waste industry. There are thousands of companies doing this already. This article is written like the BBC just discovered this. While there are ma

I am in the e-waste industry. There are thousands of companies doing this already. This article is written like the BBC just discovered this. While there are many small processors there are also big ones like Arrow Electronics. The hottest item is phones. There is a small shop down the road from me that processes 300K phones a month. They are not capital intensive but are very labor intensive. Most of the money is in reuse. They clean and test the phones, grade them, and sell them on. The non-working ones can have their parts salvaged. The true scrap is sent on to smelters to extract the valuable stuff and dispose of the rest responsibly. Most follow the Responsible Recycling (R2) standard. Some things like cathode ray tube glass has a negative value, meaning you have to pay someone to dispose of it.

deleted 8y ago
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walrus01 8y ago
Serious question, once the things that still work have been repaired, resold, or dismantled for parts to repair other things. Is there ANY way that with north American labor costs and insurance, OSHA standards, pollution regulations, energy costs etc, that it's economical to start melting down printed circuit boards for metal recovery? Because either I am guessing this article is delusional, or they're completely ignoring the part where the dirty messy work gets done by people in a poor country for $1/hour wages.
- azernik 8y ago
  The article mentions a mostly-automated setup - which is why it focuses on metal recycling, which is probably easier to automate than component reuse.
- kwiens 8y ago
  Nope, the items with negative value cause significant problems. CRT displays are the largest design problem that recyclers are working their way through. Just this week, ECS Refining, Apple's main recycler in California, shut down. All of their unprocessed material is now the responsibility of their landlord. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/07/03/ecs-refining-set-to-close-down/ https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/07/03/ecs-refini...
  - walrus01 8y ago
    I remember seeing this a few years ago: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/gps-tracking-devices-catch-major-u-s-recyclers-in-improper-e-waste-exports/ https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/gps-tracking-devices-cat... http://www.ban.org/trash-transparency/ http://www.ban.org/trash-transparency/
  - MisterOctober 8y ago
    ^ fact. I work for a refurbishing company, and while some of the scrap generated gets a decent payout from the recycling folks [the best common category being old PII and PIII boards / older finger boards AKA controller cards], the negative value stuff like CRTs, fluorescent lamps, and Ni-Cad batteries is awful to deal with. The big CRT operation in my state shut down a while ago, so now they have to be sent out of state i.e., cost more now to offload.
- guywithaphone 8y ago
  if you're going into business for recycling or refurbishing, you're probably not taking a shotgun approach and doing everything. Specialisation is key. Is your focus on gathering electronics, refurbishing, refining metals, being a middle man, etc. Yes, there are lots of people who legally refine precious metals from electronics and make a living. There are also lots of people who are middlemen and sell it to others. High value metals like gold are refined by LOTS of companies. "Mining " gold from dumps could be very productive because the concentration is MUCH higher in electronics than in the most productive gold mine. Profitable Gold mines typically mine and process an average of more than 2000-4000 pound of ore to obtain one ounce of gold! It is much more environmentally conscious (In some instances more profitable) to recycle electronics than to mine for precious metals.
- MisterOctober 8y ago
  You're right, most of the stuff is sent to China or elsewhere for actual extraction, due mainly to the environmental factors associated with processing [electronics are made of nasty stuff]. Labor's a factor as well, though the North American companies who do this have got their processes nailed down efficiencywise
- iamgopal 8y ago
  Believe it or not but 1USD per hour is not poor country. Poor country be like 1 USD per day.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Due to inflation is not possible to live on 1 USD per day anymore as the cost of food alone is higher than this. Even in the poorest countries labour costs are at a minimium of 1 USD an hour.
    - bodas 8y ago
      It is certainly possible to meet all of one's nutritional requirements on 1 USD per day of food, especially if you have a chicken to provide eggs. If working 48 hour weeks, 1 USD per hour is $208 per month, which is a modestly good wage in some places. Not really the minimum, although probably so for a very dirty and unpleasant job in a recycling factory.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      You'd be surprised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...
      - danieltillett 8y ago
        Wage rates are not the same as wage costs.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      About 80% of the world lives on less that $10 per day, and about half live on less than $2.50 per day.
      - danieltillett 8y ago
        Yes, but how many live on $1 a day.
- morganvachon 8y ago
  I can offer a little insight. One of the companies I work for buys salvage/returned merchandise (mostly electronics, computers and related devices, office furniture, appliances, etc). We go through the items sorting out what is worth reselling as is, what requires further inspection and repair, and obvious junk beyond repair. The items requiring inspection and/or repair go to me, and about half of what I look at is considered "open box" or "damaged box", gets a cursory inspection, is run though the paces and checked for functionality, and sent on to the people who list it on various online marketplaces. About a fourth of the remaining items sent to me are repairable, which I do and send on to the sellers listed as "seller refurbished". The remaining portion is sent to the junk pile if I can't repair it or if it's missing too many parts to be worth selling. I will sometimes hold back a valuable part (power supply, special cable, etc) from an unsellable part to use for a similar item in the future. From the junk pile, we sell by weight to recyclers who either break the items down into recyclable parts themselves, or sell them on to firms that handle what they can't, including extracting rare metals from circuit boards. To my knowledge, such firms are based here in the US, but I don't know enough about that side of the chain to name any.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

walrus01 8y ago

Serious question, once the things that still work have been repaired, resold, or dismantled for parts to repair other things. Is there ANY way that with north American labor costs and insurance, OSHA standards, pollution regulations, energy costs etc, that it's economical to start melting down printed circuit boards for metal recovery? Because either I am guessing this article is delusional, or they're completely ignoring the part where the dirty messy work gets done by people in a poor country for $1/hour wages.

azernik 8y ago
The article mentions a mostly-automated setup - which is why it focuses on metal recycling, which is probably easier to automate than component reuse.
kwiens 8y ago
Nope, the items with negative value cause significant problems. CRT displays are the largest design problem that recyclers are working their way through. Just this week, ECS Refining, Apple's main recycler in California, shut down. All of their unprocessed material is now the responsibility of their landlord. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/07/03/ecs-refining-set-to-close-down/ https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/07/03/ecs-refini...
- walrus01 8y ago
  I remember seeing this a few years ago: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/gps-tracking-devices-catch-major-u-s-recyclers-in-improper-e-waste-exports/ https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/gps-tracking-devices-cat... http://www.ban.org/trash-transparency/ http://www.ban.org/trash-transparency/
- MisterOctober 8y ago
  ^ fact. I work for a refurbishing company, and while some of the scrap generated gets a decent payout from the recycling folks [the best common category being old PII and PIII boards / older finger boards AKA controller cards], the negative value stuff like CRTs, fluorescent lamps, and Ni-Cad batteries is awful to deal with. The big CRT operation in my state shut down a while ago, so now they have to be sent out of state i.e., cost more now to offload.
guywithaphone 8y ago
if you're going into business for recycling or refurbishing, you're probably not taking a shotgun approach and doing everything. Specialisation is key. Is your focus on gathering electronics, refurbishing, refining metals, being a middle man, etc. Yes, there are lots of people who legally refine precious metals from electronics and make a living. There are also lots of people who are middlemen and sell it to others. High value metals like gold are refined by LOTS of companies. "Mining " gold from dumps could be very productive because the concentration is MUCH higher in electronics than in the most productive gold mine. Profitable Gold mines typically mine and process an average of more than 2000-4000 pound of ore to obtain one ounce of gold! It is much more environmentally conscious (In some instances more profitable) to recycle electronics than to mine for precious metals.
MisterOctober 8y ago
You're right, most of the stuff is sent to China or elsewhere for actual extraction, due mainly to the environmental factors associated with processing [electronics are made of nasty stuff]. Labor's a factor as well, though the North American companies who do this have got their processes nailed down efficiencywise
iamgopal 8y ago
Believe it or not but 1USD per hour is not poor country. Poor country be like 1 USD per day.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Due to inflation is not possible to live on 1 USD per day anymore as the cost of food alone is higher than this. Even in the poorest countries labour costs are at a minimium of 1 USD an hour.
  - bodas 8y ago
    It is certainly possible to meet all of one's nutritional requirements on 1 USD per day of food, especially if you have a chicken to provide eggs. If working 48 hour weeks, 1 USD per hour is $208 per month, which is a modestly good wage in some places. Not really the minimum, although probably so for a very dirty and unpleasant job in a recycling factory.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    You'd be surprised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      Wage rates are not the same as wage costs.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    About 80% of the world lives on less that $10 per day, and about half live on less than $2.50 per day.
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      Yes, but how many live on $1 a day.
morganvachon 8y ago
I can offer a little insight. One of the companies I work for buys salvage/returned merchandise (mostly electronics, computers and related devices, office furniture, appliances, etc). We go through the items sorting out what is worth reselling as is, what requires further inspection and repair, and obvious junk beyond repair. The items requiring inspection and/or repair go to me, and about half of what I look at is considered "open box" or "damaged box", gets a cursory inspection, is run though the paces and checked for functionality, and sent on to the people who list it on various online marketplaces. About a fourth of the remaining items sent to me are repairable, which I do and send on to the sellers listed as "seller refurbished". The remaining portion is sent to the junk pile if I can't repair it or if it's missing too many parts to be worth selling. I will sometimes hold back a valuable part (power supply, special cable, etc) from an unsellable part to use for a similar item in the future. From the junk pile, we sell by weight to recyclers who either break the items down into recyclable parts themselves, or sell them on to firms that handle what they can't, including extracting rare metals from circuit boards. To my knowledge, such firms are based here in the US, but I don't know enough about that side of the chain to name any.