November/December 2001
From obsolete computers to old TVs and discarded cell phones, the U.S. waste stream is being flooded by used electronics—and interest in electronics reuse and recycling is rising with the tide.
By Robert L. Reid
Robert L. Reid is managing editor of Scrap.
Here’s an ironic parable for the Information Age: The personal computer (PC) on which this article was written features a “recycling bin” for electronic files that have reached the end of their useful life, yet the computer itself—or at least many computers like it—might not be recycled.
Only about 11 to 14 percent of obsolete PCs in the United States are currently recycled, according to a 1999 report from the National Safety Council’s Environmental Health Center (Washington, D.C.). That means, of course, that more than 85 percent of such equipment is “stored in warehouses, basements, or closets,” landfilled, or incinerated, notes the study, titled Electronic Product Recovery and Recycling Baseline Report: Recycling of Selected Products in the United States.
How big is the problem? The Baseline Report estimates that the number of PC central processing units (CPUs) that will become obsolete next year will exceed the number of new CPUs shipped by more than 3 million units.
Moreover, PCs represent just one aspect of obsolete electronics. Old mainframes, peripherals (such as printers, modems, and scanners), cell phones, handheld computing devices, electronic games, certain medical equipment, and TVs are also part of the nation’s growing electronics waste stream.
Numerical Guessing Game
The Baseline Report—which many industry observers consider the definitive study—estimates that some 9.7 million units (or roughly 275 million pounds) of various electronic equipment were recycled in the United States in 1998. This included some 2.9 million units of computer peripherals (73 million pounds); 2.3 million units of desktop PC CPUs (58 million pounds); 2.2 million units of telecommunications equipment (22 million pounds); 1.5 million units of cathode-ray tube (CRT) computer monitors (51 million pounds); 413,000 units of workstation CPUs (12 million pounds); 300,000 units of notebook PCs (3 million pounds); 54,000 units of mainframe computers (54 million pounds); and 19,000 units of TVs (950,000 pounds).
But remember: These are just estimates for the old electronics that actually get recycled. No one seems to have authoritative numbers for what happens to the total volume of electronic equipment that companies and consumers discard each year.
In fact, one 10-year series of projections by Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh) shifted dramatically from first saying that 150 million PCs would end up in landfills by the year 2005 to predicting that “newly established recycled electronics goods markets” would instead help recycle many of those 150 million PCs, before finally returning—in a soon-to-be-published update of those earlier reports—to the original prediction of 150 million landfilled PCs.
“We realize that the numbers we’ve been estimating—and they really are estimates because nobody’s collecting data—have taken on a life of their own,” explains H. Scott Matthews, research director of Carnegie Mellon’s interdisciplinary Green Design Initiative. So instead of “purely guessing at what the numbers are,” Matthews says, the new report will focus on “educating people about ‘what-if’ scenarios and policy scenarios” designed to reduce the volumes of obsolete electronics sent to landfills.
Reducing that volume is especially important because the landfilling option is under assault. Driven by the fact that many electronic devices contain hazardous materials—CRT monitors can contain as much as 27 percent lead, the U.S. EPA notes, while other electronic components use cadmium, chromium, certain toxic flame retardants, and even PCBs (in older TV sets)—a growing number of communities and states are banning certain products from their waste streams.
Last year, Massachusetts became the first state to ban the disposal of computer screens in landfills and incinerators, but it’s not alone. This March, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control declared it illegal to dispose of CRT-based computer monitors or TVs in the state’s municipal landfills.
This summer, King County, Wash.—which includes Seattle—ordered businesses to stop tossing out old computer monitors in trash dumpsters. King County is also looking at what to do about homeowners who want to discard old monitors.
Internationally, the European Parliament has taken the first steps toward an end-of-life producer responsibility law for electronics manufacturers that could mirror its recent legislation requiring automobile manufacturers to recycle their products.
Going Through a Phase—or Two
When old electronics are recycled in the United States—rather than landfilled or put in storage—the process can involve one or more of four phases based on the “degree of modification the equipment must undergo,” explains a recent EPA report, Electronics Reuse and Recycling.
Asset Recovery. This first phase typically involves programs by the companies that make electronic products—often called the original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs—to recover pre- or postconsumer materials and components that can be remanufactured or reused in new products, EPA explains.
Refurbishment and Reuse. In this next phase, old electronics are resold or donated to someone who will continue to use the basically intact unit for its original purpose—for instance, an older-model PC will still be used as a PC. While the current speed of technology development means that a newer, faster PC is usually available every 14 months, plenty of people are content to use something less than state-of-the-art technology, notes Peter Muscanelli, founder of the International Association of Electronics Recyclers (IAER) (Albany, N.Y.). Before reuse, though, old devices often need to be fixed or upgraded with new memory or software. Reuse is the most lucrative side of electronics recycling, with a strong export demand, industry observers note, though falling prices for new electronics make new equipment increasingly competitive.
Demanufacturing or Disassembly. Once an electronic device is too old or outmoded to be refurbished, it can be manually broken down into its component parts, such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, and processors. These parts can then be resold or reused in other equipment, EPA notes, or recycled to recover the raw materials. Sometimes, even the most obsolete device might still have a circuitboard or even a single chip that remains valuable.
Recycling or Salvaging. This final phase involves separating and processing the raw materials—such as plastics, metals, and glass—in the electronic device’s components. Contrary to popular belief, precious metals such as gold and platinum are no longer used extensively in electronics, notes Muscanelli. Instead, steel, glass, and plastics account for more than three-fourths of the materials recovered by weight from electronics recyclers in the United States, followed by aluminum, copper, and only then a relatively small amount of precious metals. Indeed, a recent pilot project in Minnesota that collected more than 6 tons of electronics during its initial phase yielded scrap material that was 43 percent metal, 32 percent glass, 9 percent plastic, with the remainder either listed as “trash” or “usable” items.
Semantically, it is important to note that some groups talk about “electronics recycling” in general to describe any or all of the ways used electronics are processed, while others reserve the term “recycling” just for this final phase, at which point the old equipment no longer exists in any recognizable form as an electronic device.
An Emerging Industry
If the hard data about what happens to old hardware is a bit fuzzy, one point is clear: Interest in recycling electronics is on the rise.
“Electronics recycling is an emerging industry that is at a critical point in its development in terms of growth and challenges,” notes IAER’s Web page.
That growth is at least partially evident from the ever-increasing size of IAER’s database.
“We have some 750 firms listed as electronics recyclers or people at companies involved in electronics recycling, and every week we add one or two new ones,” Muscanelli notes.
And that’s just the full-time electronics recyclers. It doesn’t include the scrap processors who handle some electronics or the various reuse shops or nonprofit agencies that refurbish older equipment.
Electronics recyclers range in size from mom-and-pop operations with only five or six employees up to big firms with as many as 300 people, says Muscanelli.
Likewise, the services these recyclers offer run from specialized niches—such as those that only disassemble old computers to retrieve reusable components—to those that handle everything from collection and repair or refurbishment to resale, demanufacturing, parts recovery, material recovery, and ultimately material processing.
To boost efficiency, Muscanelli adds, electronics recyclers often work with other firms such as traditional scrap processors, who are better equipped to handle the recovered metal, glass, plastic, and other commodities from old electronic equipment.
In addition to the full-time recyclers, many OEMs are playing a more active role in recovering used electronics, though they continue to consider themselves manufacturers rather than recyclers per se, Muscanelli notes. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Apple, Sony, Toshiba, and others all have either launched their own recycling efforts or are participating in pilot projects run by various states or industry groups.
And at least one electronics retailer—Best Buy—recently launched a program that encourages consumers to bring used electronics to specific stores on special “collection weekends.”
As such recognizable corporate names might indicate, the business of recycling electronics is currently concentrated among larger firms, including subsidiaries of OEMs, notes the Baseline Report.
OEMs and large-scale users of electronics (firms with more than 500 employees) generate 75 percent of the used electronics received by electronics recyclers or other third-party organizations that refurbish, resell, or donate such equipment, the report states. Likewise, the top-five electronics recyclers handled half of all the old electronics processed in the United States in 1998, while the top 10 firms processed three-fourths of all such material. (The Baseline Report does not identify these leading recyclers, but it notes that firms based in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions accounted for half of all the volume.)
At the other end of the scale, individual users and small businesses “contribute only a fraction of the electronic equipment that is recycled,” the Baseline Report says. But with nearly every U.S. household having at least one TV set and with PCs now in more than half of U.S. homes, “the need for consumer participation in electronics recycling will become increasingly important,” the report concludes.
Overcoming Obstacles
Getting consumers and small businesses involved won’t be easy.
For one reason, there’s the cost of recycling. Unlike other products that people might offer to a recycler—such as aluminum cans or old automobiles—old electronics often have little or no value. So instead of getting paid for their obsolete electronics, the owners must pay recyclers to take the material.
Sure, a relatively new PC—such as one that’s less than 2 years old—will still have value. It might even be reusable as is or with some refurbishment. But the same is not true for a 10-year-old computer or a 20-year-old TV set. Indeed, computer recycler DMC, with facilities in New Hampshire and Maryland, refurbishes and resells only 10 to 15 percent of incoming material, notes EPA’s Electronics Reuse and Recycling. The bulk of old electronics is “demanufactured to its original parts,” the report adds.
Such demanufacturing is labor-intensive, and it requires an expertise in sorting the electronic wheat from the chaff. “You must be extremely efficient to make money at recycling electronics,” says IAER’s Muscanelli. “You need to have a real insight into what equipment has value.” Thus, he states, “to do this correctly, the recycler must be able to charge.”
Both IBM and Hewlett-Packard, for instance, take back and recycle old computer equipment—regardless of who manufactured it. But IBM charges $29.99 for this service, while HP’s fees range from $13 to $34. Best Buy also plans to charge for its take-back program.
Though some industry observers wonder if individual consumers and small computer users will pay even a relatively small amount to recycle old equipment that originally cost them thousands of dollars, Peter Muscanelli is optimistic. As he notes, people already pay to discard old appliances such as refrigerators.
“People see that if they pay a little bit now to recycle something correctly, it benefits everyone,” he explains. But the responsibility for such correct recycling must be shared among users, OEMs, municipalities, and recycling firms, he stresses.
Recyclers must be efficient to minimize the cost to businesses and consumers, Muscanelli suggests, while municipalities, recyclers, and OEMs must help build an infrastructure to collect the outmoded electronic material.
Installing an Infrastructure
At present, the groundwork for such an electronics recycling infrastructure can be seen in various pilot projects as well as recently established programs from OEMs and other industry groups.
IBM—which says it recycled more than 120 million pounds of electronic equipment and parts in 1999—expanded its efforts in November 2000 to include material from any manufacturer sent in by individual consumers and businesses of all sizes. Under the new program, people with old equipment to discard can simply pack it up and ship it via UPS to a designated recycler for a flat rate of $29.99.
Hewlett-Packard announced a roughly similar program in May 2001, though HP arranges to pick up the used equipment and charges its fee based on the quantity and type of equipment. Since 1997, HP has been recycling some 3 million pounds a month of its own products at a Roseville, Calif., facility jointly operated by HP and Micro Metallics Corp., a subsidiary of Noranda Inc. (Toronto). HP and Noranda also opened a second electronics recycling plant in Nashville, Tenn.
This April, Minneapolis-based Best Buy launched what it described as the first national electronics recycling project offered by a consumer electronics retailer. During designated collection weekends, customers will be able to drop off old computers, TVs, VCRs, and other used electronics at specified Best Buy stores for handling fees that, at two locations, recently ranged from $10 for computer monitors to $15 for TV sets. Best Buy launched the program in selected states this year, and plans to expand it nationally over the next several years.
In addition, the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) (Arlington, Va.) launched a year-long pilot project to test three models of electronics collection and recycling. Scheduled to run from October 2001 to October 2002, the program will compare the effectiveness and costs of a “municipal” model (in which municipalities collect used electronics and transport them to a designated recycler, while participating companies foot the bill), a “retailer” model (in which the electronics industry will provide funds to participating retailers based on covered product sales, with the retailers then arranging for recycling), and a “consumer dropoff” model (in which industry will help fund collections at retailers, with the retailers then charging consumers a dropoff fee to cover recycling costs). EIA’s project covers CRTs, liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, TVs, computers, and computer peripherals. Participating companies include Hewlett-Packard, Canon, JVC, Kodak, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, Sharp, Sony, and Thompson, with more expected to join, EIA says.
Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony also recently participated in a 1999 pilot project in Minnesota, along with electronics recycler Waste Management—Asset Recovery Corp. and the American Plastics Council. The four-month project ultimately collected 575 tons of used electronics, of which 25 percent were TVs, 24 percent computer monitors, 11 percent CPUs, and 40 percent “mixed electronics” that included anything from fax machines to kitchen and bathroom devices. Since the collections attracted material that was often 8 to 15 years old as well as newer equipment, the study highlighted the benefits of designing products to be recycled. “Whole products have been made easier to disassemble through better design,” the study noted, which “reduces labor costs to refurbish and repair products, reuse parts, and recycle materials.”
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
From computers to cell phones to TVs and countless other gadgets, the proliferation of electronic products will likely grow in the future. So too will the need and opportunity to recycle such equipment. Indeed, the Baseline Report sees electronics recycling growing by as much as 18 percent a year between 1998 and 2007.
Plus, the electronics waste stream could suddenly be flooded by old TV sets when digital TVs begin to replace the current analog models over the next decade. (The Federal Communications Commission has actually talked about switching off analog TV signals entirely by January 2006, though industry watchers doubt that deadline will stick.)
Other challenges ahead include the current hodge-podge of local laws regarding disposal of used electronics, plus the very technological innovations that are the electronics industry’s greatest marketing tool. Miniaturization of electronics, for instance, helps make products more attractive to customers, but it can make disassembly more difficult, notes Carnegie Mellon’s
H. Scott Matthews. Likewise, the shift from CRT to LCD screens is problematic because recyclers have less experience working with the flat-screen products.
Still, such obstacles are hardly holding back potential recyclers.
“The industry is growing quickly, changing rapidly,” notes IAER’s Muscanelli. Whether it’s new entrepreneurs or existing firms looking to expand their electronics recycling services, “a lot of people are jumping into this business,” he adds. “But they often don’t really understand what’s necessary. So I tell them they need to study and understand the potential risks. They need to do their homework.”
Maybe even work through the numbers on a spreadsheet—an electronic one, of course. •
Data Download
The following sources have additional information on recycling electronics:
The American Plastics Council (APC) published the report Plastics from Residential Electronics last year. Call 703/253-0614, or visit www.plastics.org.
In addition to its current year-long pilot program, the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) also recently launched a Web-based Consumer Education Initiative to disseminate information about electronics reuse and recycling
efforts. Call 703/907-7573, or visit www.eiae.org.
The U.S. EPA offers extensive information through its Product Stewardship program Web site (www.epa.gov/epr/products/electronics.html for the electronics-specific page). Also, the EPA report Electronics Reuse and Recycling can be found online at www.epa.gov/wastewise/wrr/updates.htm.
The International Association of Electronics Recyclers (IAER) has created an extensive directory of the electronics recycling industry. It also offers information on its certification program—open to scrap processors as well as full-time electronics recyclers—that involves an independent audit aimed at promoting best practices, industry standards, and quality assurance. Call 888/989-4237, or visit www.iaer.org.
The final report of Minnesota’s electronics recycling pilot project and other information can be found online through the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance Plug Into Recycling Web site at www.moea.state.mn.
us/plugin/index.cfm.
The National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) works to promote a dialogue among all stakeholders in electronics recycling, including government, industry, environmental groups, recyclers, and retailers. Funded by an EPA grant, NEPSI is being coordinated by the University of Tennessee’s Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies. Call 865/974-1835 or -1915, or visit eercut.utk.edu/clean/nepsi.
The National Safety Council’s (NSC) Environmental Health Center is planning to update its Baseline Report as part of its Electronic Products Recovery and Recycling (EPR2) Project. NSC also sponsors an annual EPR2 conference, currently scheduled for March 13-14, 2002, in Washington, D.C. For information or to order a copy of the original Baseline Report, call 202/293-2270, or visit www.nsc.org/ehc/epr2.htm.
The National Recycling Coalition’s Electronic Recycling Initiative features extensive information, including a national database of electronics recyclers, reuse organizations, and municipal programs. Visit www.nrc-recycle.org/Programs/electronics
RecycleNet Corp. has launched an electronics recycling business-to-business portal at www.electronics.exchangesystem.net.
Editor’s note: By the way, the outlook for recycling the computer on which this article was written is actually quite good. ReMA leases the unit from a company in Troy, Mich., that will eventually send it to a firm in Edgewood, N.Y., that has been reselling or recycling electronic products since 1998.
From obsolete computers to old TVs and discarded cell phones, the U.S. waste stream is being flooded by used electronics—and interest in electronics reuse and recycling is rising with the tide.