By Jenny Neyman
Photo courtesy of Total Reclaim. Workers at a Total Reclaim facility strip down computer monitors to separate out base materials for recycling. Electronics recycling saves landfill space and makes use of nonrenewable resources.
Redoubt Reporter
Technology moves at the speed of light these days. In the blink of the digital time display flashing “12:00” that we never learned to set on our VCRs, that technology is already obsolete.
So what happens to it then? Put it on a shelf somewhere to gather dust? Donate it to a thrift store, where it will still sit on a shelf because other people want to keep up with the times, too? The trash seems to be the only option left.
But before all those wires and circuitry, plastic casings and other nonbiodegradable bits and pieces go to languish in a landfill, consider what else could be done with them. An old-school computer or nonflat-screen TV may not be much use in its current form these days, but those components could be recycled into something else. And if they aren’t, they could do serious damage to the environment.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Landfill in Soldotna will host an electronics recycling event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Volunteers and representatives from Total Reclaim in Anchorage will take old computers, monitors and components, TVs, card machines, cameras, phones, small appliances, tape, disks and the like. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Reilly Kosinski, outreach coordinator for Total Reclaim, will give a presentation in Room 158 at Kenai Peninsula College about electronics recycling, including demonstrations, explanations of how the process works, and, in particular, why people should do it.
“There are three big benefits,” Kosinski said. “The first one being that you extend the life of your landfills. I know it’s always hard to purchase more land and develop those. Also, the toxic materials inside the electronics, such as the lead, arsenic, beryllium and selenium. We either reuse it or dispose of it properly so it won’t create other environmental consequences. And these components are made of nonrenewable resources — like metals and plastics. So recycling extends the life of those resources. I try to liken us to a mining operation. We’re really taking these materials and, instead of trying to extract them from the earth, we’re reusing this material.”
Almost all electronics components can go to be reused in something else, Kosinski said. In Alaska, Total Reclaim processes electronics in its facility in Anchorage, which opened about four years ago. Components are sorted, packed up and shipped to the company’s main facility in the Seattle area. There, employees take the components apart, sort the bits and pieces, and ship them off to other companies and facilities that recycle the materials.
For instance, plastic casings from computers, monitors, VCRs and other electronics are separated into light- and dark-colored plastic, and shipped to a facility in Portland, Ore., where it is cut into ribbons and diced up into tiny plastic molding pellets, which can be reused to form new electronics casings.
Circuit boards go to companies in Belgium and Sweden. At Umicore, the Belgium facility, they can extract 17 different metals from the circuitry, and mix the leftover slag with concrete to be used in dike construction, Kosinski said.
“In my opinion, that’s one of the best recyclers on the planet,” Kosinski said. “The idea is to have all the recyclable materials end back up on the commodities market. I believe our waste stream in Washington (nonrecyclable materials that go to the landfill) is right around 1 percent. And a lot of that is treated wood.”
There are a few items Total Reclaim won’t accept, for safety reasons. Ionization smoke detectors — which most are — contain a small amount of radioactive material. On its own, one smoke detector isn’t terribly dangerous, but if Total Reclaim were accepting and storing a large volume of them and there were some sort of accident, it could be hazardous, Kosinski said. Same goes for glowing Exit signs that use a radioactive gas to stay lit without power. Total Reclaim doesn’t accept vacuum cleaners, although that’s more because of the dirt than anything dangerous about them.
“They ruin the bearings in the shredders. We did try to break them down by hand once, but the poor, unfortunate soul who had that job ended up getting sick afterward,” Kosinski said.
They also won’t take fluorescent light ballasts or older electronics made before 1980 that contain PCBs. Kosinski suggests contacting the landfill or companies that deal with hazardous waste disposal to find out what to do with those items.
“Anything with PCBs in it are some of the most toxic things known to man,” Kosinski said.
That may be a little overly dramatic, however. Kosinski said he’s not out to make people afraid of their home electronics or appliances.
“I try not to use scare tactics, because, really, no one is going to end up dead from household appliances. Sure, maybe a few folks out there have, but I think the biggest concern is just what happens to them when you’re done with them,” he said. “And you’re wasting of resources. You spend all this time, effort and money to extract all these materials. Why just use them once and toss them when we can use them over and over?”
The cost to drop off electronics Saturday will be $15 per vehicle for households, with up to three monitors. Businesses and nonprofits will be charged 25 cents a pound, and there will be additional charges for extra TVs and monitors.
But why would someone pay to throw something out, when they could just stuff it in a garbage bag and ditch it with their regular trash? And why pay extra for this recycling, when paper, cans, glass and similar materials can be put in recycling bins for free?
“What we tell them is, you don’t expect your trash service to be free, do you?” Kosinski said. “And electronics recycling is tougher on us than other commodities. Recycling paper, metal and cans is free, but we say, ‘When you go to the recycling center, you can’t just dump everything on their front doorstep. You actually work for them on that separation process. In separating it yourself, you’re volunteering for them. But we don’t expect that for electronics, and we wouldn’t want them to do that because there are hazards inside, so that’s where a lot of that fee goes to.”
Electronics recycling is in a financial cycle of its own. As the price of petroleum goes up, the company is hit with higher fuel costs to transport its materials. But at the same time, the commodities prices usually go up, so they get more money for the products they sell to recycling facilities.
“We’re in this weird teeter-totter area. With fuel prices going up we have to pay those high fuel surcharges to transport the stuff down to Seattle. At the same time, when the commodities market goes up, our materials price goes up, too,” he said.
In Washington, electronics recycling is free for households and businesses with fewer than 50 employees, because of support from the government and electronics manufacturers, Kosinski said.
“Everyone kind of gave a little to allow that to happen, and it’s really good. We just have guys working nonstop down there trying to keep up with the electronics coming in, so if there’s collaborative effort like that, everyone can benefit,” he said.
Even in Alaska, without that level of support, Total Reclaim at least hasn’t raised its prices to offset rising costs.
“When metal prices were really low we started cutting back, trying to be little more conservative here on how much wrap we use, trying to get the trailers loaded well so we can get as much material on them as we can. That way we didn’t have to raise prices to the consumers. We have a really good crew up here, and they’re pretty efficient,” Kosinski said.
Kosinski said he’s happy to talk to anyone who may be wondering, why bother? That’s what his visits to schools and the meeting at KPC is for.
“If they are put off by the price, have them come Wednesday and they can ask questions. Don’t just put it off or blow it off, at least let us try to convince you,” he said.
