September/October 2008
Landfill bans and declining popularity could drive more cathode ray tube devices into the recycling stream. At the same time, CRT recyclers face shrinking domestic markets for the glass and new rules on exports.
By Kim Fernandez
What do cathode ray tubes have in common with wagon wheels? Both are once-ubiquitous consumer products that eventually became replaced with more advanced technology. One century ago, when the Ford Motor Co. introduced the Model T car, it spelled the end for the horse-drawn wagon, and those wagon wheels usually found their way into the scrapyard. Today, a combination of developments are driving consumers to replace their CRT-based televisions and computer monitors with flat-screen varieties, and the CRTs often are scrapyard-bound as well.
The cathode ray tube is a bit more complex to recycle than a wagon wheel, though. In addition to the plastic and ferrous and nonferrous metals it shares with other recyclable electronics, the device contains a large proportion of leaded glass. The possibility of that glass, when cracked or shattered, leaching lead into the environment has led to calls for more regulation of end-of-life CRTs. That leaves CRT recyclers in an unenviable spot. They're looking at short-term supply growth, long-term supply decline, and the challenge of finding buyers for used devices and the processed glass.
RIP for the CRT?
Though most televisions and computer monitors were CRT-based up until a few years ago, LCD and plasma screens have taken over the market. CRT technology still has its fans, who tout the true-to-life colors and the product's durability—after all, televisions from 30 and 40 years ago are still in service in many households. But several trends are pushing CRTs out of the home and office.
Prices for LCD and plasma devices have plummeted over the past two years, making them more affordable to middle-class consumers. Both types of flat-screen technology are lighter and flatter than CRTs, they can be mounted on a wall, and they typically use less energy. Many desktop computer systems now come with a flat-screen monitor. Moreover, laptop computers now outsell desktop computers in the United States, and they will outsell desktops in the rest of the world by next year, according to research from IDC (Framingham, Mass.), additional factors that are likely to result in the disposal of CRT monitors. And with the digital television transition taking place in February 2009, market research from the Consumer Electronics Association (Arlington, Va.) estimates that U.S. consumers will remove nearly 15 million televisions that are not digital-ready from their households through 2010.
At the same time more households and businesses are disposing of CRTs, a growing number of state and local governments have become concerned about these products entering landfills due to their bulk and the potential hazards they contain. Nearly a dozen states have passed laws that ban the landfilling of CRT monitors, televisions, or both. Further, the promotion of electronics recycling by recyclers, manufacturers, retailers, municipal governments, and nonprofits has increased consumer awareness of the recycling option. The CEA's research indicates that consumers plan to sell, donate, or recycle 95 percent of those nearly 15 million TVs they no longer want.
Those trends should lead to more CRTs in the electronics recycling stream, and at least for one company, that's led to more competition. "When we started Computer Recyclers of America [now E-World Recyclers] in 2002, we were one of two CRT recyclers in the state of California," says Bob Erie, CEO of the company based in Vista, Calif. "The industry has evolved, and now there are 43 different CRT recyclers in California. The competition has gotten thicker."
Erie says E-World Recyclers actually saw a 30 percent drop in CRT recycling between 2007 and 2008. That's in part due to the increased competition, he says, but he also thinks the CRT monitor market has already passed its peak. "The number of CRTs that come with computers is declining," he says. "What's happened over the last two or three years is that a lot [fewer] people are replacing their desktop monitors because they've already gone and done that."
The television market is another story, however. "I anticipate that the CRT television market will probably grow for another year and a half to two years as the signals change to all-digital," Erie says. "The competitiveness in the LCD and flat-screen TV market will [continue to] drive prices down. … It's the wave of the future, and with that comes the impending threat of a large number of CRT televisions hitting the recycling market." That boom will be temporary, just as the CRT monitor one was, he says, but because televisions contain more glass (by weight) than computer monitors, the impact of the boom might be greater.
Reuse and Domestic Recycling
CRT recyclers have several options for getting value out of these devices, the first of which is resale. Joe Clayton, director of sales for Synergy Recycling (Mayodan, N.C.), says the CRT monitor market "is tightening, but we are still able to sell reusable monitors." In contrast, he says, "we have yet to find a viable and stable [market]" for used, CRT-based televisions.
Josh Turchin, vice president of California Metals (El Cajon, Calif.), says most of his company's markets for reuse are in Latin America, but "demand for CRT technology has diminished significantly." Over the past three years it has gotten "harder and harder to market [CRTs] for reuse." On occasion, a company with older, legacy equipment will pay a premium for "enterprise-class" replacement units such as dumb terminals. But it's generally no longer cost-effective to warehouse, refurbish, and transport reusable CRTs, Turchin says. This is especially true in California, where the state has created a disincentive for reuse through its advanced recovery fee, which consumers pay on electronics purchases and the state uses to cover collection and demanufacturing costs.
Recyclers typically disassemble or shred monitors to separate and sell the various commodities. At Synergy, "we disassemble all the bad monitors," such as ones that have screen burn, are scratched, busted, have cut cords, and so on, Clayton says. Also, "we disassemble every single TV that comes through our door." The plastic is baled and "sold into the plastics market, both domestic and international," Clayton says. "All TVs now are being made overseas, so the material commodities move to where there's need." Ferrous and nonferrous metals have both domestic and international markets. Unique to CRTs, however, is the leaded glass. A CRT contains an average of 4 pounds of lead, according to the U.S. EPA. Up to 25 percent of the lead is in the glass funnel; up to 85 percent is in the frit, the paste of leaded glass used to join the funnel to the front panel glass; and less than 3 percent is in the panel, according to research conducted at the University of Florida.
Some electronics recyclers separate the panel and funnel for sale into two different markets. E-World, for example, has a patented separation technique. It sells the panel glass for recycling with other nonleaded glass; the leaded funnel glass is "furnace-ready" to be sold to lead smelters. "Lead as a commodity is at an all-time high" price, Erie says, but there's only one lead smelter in the United States that accepts CRT glass, and it's in Missouri. "If you're not located close to Missouri, sending your glass there isn't economical," he says.
Other recyclers produce a mixed panel and funnel glass product that manufacturers can use to create new CRT monitors. With almost no buyers for new CRT devices in North America, however, the domestic glass-to-glass market has evaporated. The March/April 2003 Scrap article "Making CRT Recycling Work" named four glass-to-glass companies in the United States: Corning Asahi, Techneglas, Thomson, and American Video Glass Co. All four had exited the CRT production business in the United States by 2006, according to news reports. With the extremely limited domestic market for CRT glass, shipping it overseas has become a necessary part of CRT recycling, Erie says.
The EPA Rules on Exports
Today up to 80 percent of U.S. CRTs collected for reuse or recycling are exported—whole or in parts—to factories in India, Malaysia, and Korea, among other countries. This raised concerns about lax environmental and worker protections in the countries recycling the CRTs. In response, the U.S. EPA implemented a new rule in early 2007 that governs the export of CRTs—including mixed CRT glass—for recycling or reuse.
"The CRT rule was really aimed at facilitating cost-effective CRT recycling," says Matt Hale, director of the EPA's Office of Solid Waste. "We clarified a situation which was, up to that point, unclear," he says. "We gave recyclers some simple standards that are very consistent with cost-effective operations."
Prior to this rule, the EPA classified CRT exports as hazardous waste due to their lead content. Further, Hale says, there was some confusion over the export of CRT glass shipments containing a mix of both leaded and lead-free glass. The rule addresses four categories of CRT exports. Two categories—unused, intact CRTs exported for reuse or recycling and CRT glass that has been processed and sorted—are not subject to export requirements. Exporters of used, intact CRTs for reuse must notify the EPA and keep records of the transaction for three years.
The EPA rule imposes the strictest requirements on exporters of used CRTs for recycling, a category that includes intact devices, disassembled devices, and mixed CRT glass. The exporter must notify the EPA of the plan to export; the EPA then must get the consent of the destination country before the exporter can make the shipment. The exporter also must keep records for three years. Recyclers "need to pay very close attention to not only the rules, which are easy and straightforward, but also the export fees," Hale says.
Recyclers report the rule has not been burdensome so far, in part because they say they were already working to those standards. Synergy, for example, exports its mixed glass product to a Samsung Corning facility in Malaysia. "For every load, we get a letter of acceptance [from them] that the glass was of reuse quality," Clayton says.
Others say the EPA has yet to ramp up its enforcement of the rule, but they expect that to change. "I've spoken with some people at the EPA, and I think you're going to see a little more attention" to enforcement in the coming months, Erie says. Still, he says, "I don't think it's going to have a lot of impact" on the demand for CRT glass exports. "For the countries that have the furnaces, this is still a viable industry for them," he points out. "Using old CRT glass instead of other glass to make new CRT tubes reduces the cost by 60 percent to 70 percent." The new reporting requirements might put a bit of pinch on recyclers who aren't already in compliance, he adds.
Toward a Tubeless Future
To complicate the CRT recycling issue even further, CRT glass can actually have a negative value. Domestic lead smelters typically charge recyclers to take the glass; Clayton says the value he gets from exporting it "does not cover the freight [charges] from my facility." So CRT recyclers are hardly in it for the money. Recyclers take pride in the role they play in commodity recovery and keeping potential hazards out of the environment. "A lot of companies send [whole CRTs] overseas for recycling, where environmental standards are much lower," Clayton says. "We choose not to do that, and our clients have been willing to pay the fees that are required for that service." His company only exports the separated commodities, and he urges others to take that approach. "If you're neglecting the CRT market, you're not really an electronics recycler," Clayton says. "We do it because it's part of the entire process" of electronics recycling, he says. "It's not that difficult," he points out, but "a lot of people just don't want to do it [because] it's not horribly profitable."
Though the CRT recycling market will likely subside as the devices fall in popularity, it's unlikely to disappear entirely, electronics recyclers say. "I don't think the CRT industry is ever going to end," Erie says. "It's just going to really decline in value. I think it's a fair assessment to say that companies that have a strong focus on CRT recycling may have to diversify into other income streams because they're going to see an eventual decline."
Unfortunately, he says, "there's no natural progression" from CRTs to something else. Some companies will shift to focusing on other electronic devices. Others might be able to master new skills and branch out based on the power of their existing contracts with large electronics manufacturers. "If you've been processing CRTs for one of the large companies for several years, it's natural to find out how to process LCDs," Erie says. After all, flat-screen televisions won't last forever. •
Kim Fernandez is a writer based in Bethesda, Md.
Landfill bans and declining popularity could drive more cathode ray tube devices into the recycling stream. At the same time, CRT recyclers face shrinking domestic markets for the glass and new rules on exports.