MBA Polymers - Your Source for Recycled Plastics

Breaking Down All Those Computers:
Glass Over Here, Plastic There

By HEIDI SCHUESSLE
November 23, 2000
NY TIMES COMPUTER components have changed over the years, but a PC today is typically 40 percent steel, 30 percent to 40 percent plastic, 10 percent aluminum and 10 percent other metals, including copper, gold, silver, cadmium and platinum. A monitor adds glass and lead to the components.

If a computer cannot be resold or donated, recycling companies take apart the machine — by hand or with shredders — and separate the materials.

Scrap steel is shipped to mills to be melted down for use in cars and construction beams, among other things. Aluminum can be made into cans and foil. Precious metals are refined and sold to jewelers, dentists and chip makers. Refined copper can be reused in wiring, pipes and computer circuitry. Recycled lead finds its way into car batteries and film.

Glass and plastic are more complicated. Leaded glass, used in monitors, cannot be easily recycled, so it is often crushed and used as an industrial abrasive or to make asphalt. Nonleaded glass can be crushed and turned into usable glass.

Plastics from older computers often have paint and metallic coatings that can contaminate the waste stream. But even when computer plastic can be separated into pure streams, there are not many markets for it. DMC Electronics Recycling Company, based in Newfields, N.H., sends three million pounds of plastic each year to be recycled into pothole filler.

"We pay a vendor 5 cents a pound to take it away and recycle it," said Richard Campbell, director of corporate relations for the company. "We would rather pay than see it all end up in a landfill."

The potential is there for greater recycling. I.B.M.'s IntelliStation E Pro computer has eight major parts made of 100 percent recycled plastic, and the covers of its RS/6000 server contain 25 percent recycled plastic from several sources, including old computers.

The success of plastic recycling depends on finding enough volume to make it cost effective. Hand separation of the items is expensive, said Mike Biddle, chief executive of MBA Polymers Inc., in Richland, Calif.

"If we have enough of it," Mr. Biddle said, "with our automated process, we can sell it for less than virgin plastic."

A fire at the processing center last month set the company back, Mr. Biddle said, but "we'll be back on track soon, and were looking forward to the day when more plastic becomes available."

PC Recycling Efforts Take Off at Last

WHEN the Computer Recycling Center opened 10 years ago in Silicon Valley, Steven Wyatt hoped to collect 200 old and discarded computers a month. The center fell short of that target, ending the first year with about 2,000.

Now Mr. Wyatt looks back and laughs.

"We certainly don't have that problem anymore," said Mr. Wyatt, executive director of the nonprofit center in Santa Clara, Calif., that puts refurbished technology in the hands of people who would otherwise not have access to it. "The second year tripled over the first, then the third year tripled over the second. The growth was just mind-boggling." This year donations exceeded 100,000.

The center's success is based on a crucial question, one that is still being asked: What do you do with an old computer? As more powerful software requires more powerful computers, people and companies are upgrading their equipment faster than ever.

The average life span of a computer bought today is three years and shrinking. "We're already seeing flat-screen technology coming through the door," said Richard Campbell, director of corporate relations at DMC Electronics Recycling Company, based in Newfields, N.H.

The lightning-fast pace of computer obsolescence has created a backlog of equipment with nowhere to go. It has also raised questions about who is responsible for the expensive collection, transportation, dismantling and recycling of old computers.

Last year, the National Recycling Coalition, an industry group, conducted the first large-scale survey of America's electronic recycling efforts. The results were staggering. Between now and 2007, the survey found, 500 million personal computers will become obsolete. In 1998 alone, 20 million computers were taken out of service; only 2.3 million were recycled.

The remaining are assumed to be languishing in attics, basements and office storage closets. Or they have been thrown in the garbage. Once in a landfill, a computer monitor can be toxic: each cathode-ray tube, or C.R.T., contains four to six pounds of lead.

But with the right systems in place, all obsolete computers can be reused or recycled. If a PC is no more than five years old and is still in good condition, it can be resold or donated. Computers beyond their useful life can be disassembled and sold for parts, or their raw materials — steel, plastic, aluminum, gold, silver, copper and glass — can be recycled into a different consumer product.

Only a handful of state and municipal governments are experimenting with ways to keep computers out of the waste stream. (In April, Massachusetts became the first state to ban cathode-ray tubes in landfills.) The high cost of operating an electronics recycling program often forces them to look outside the government for help. Increasingly, they are turning to the computer manufacturers themselves.

"There ought to be a shared responsibility," said Michael Shapiro, deputy assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. "We see roles for state and local governments, consumers, and an important and key role for the manufacturers."

Out of necessity, many large computer manufacturers have long had extensive internal recycling programs in place. Hewlett- Packard, for example, recycles 3.5 million pounds of electronic equipment a month and has its own recycling center. Several companies are starting to reach out to consumers and small- business owners, as well.

Sony, for example, is introducing a cooperative take-back program with the state of Minnesota. By year's end, Minnesota residents will be able to bring their old Sony products to designated drop-off sites, free of charge. Sony will then subsidize the cost of transporting the equipment to recycling centers.

"Were not looking to make money on this — it's not our business," said Mark Small, Sony's vice president for corporate environmental affairs. "But in five years if we can make this cost-effective and sustainable, then we'll have succeeded."

In Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, the news comes as a great relief. The local electronics recycling program has grown by 30 percent each year since it began in 1992, and the county has already collected 1,000 tons of electronic waste in 2000.

"The cost of the program is going to hit $1 million this year," said Mike Brandt, conservation division manager with the county's Department of Environmental Services. While it is too early to know how much Sony's involvement will save taxpayers, Mr. Brandt said every little bit helps.

Other companies have programs as well. Earlier this month, I.B.M. introduced a service that allows individuals and small businesses to ship old computers to a recycling center. Gateway offers rebates on new purchases when buyers bring an old computer to a collection site.

For now, programs like these will remain strictly voluntary because the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't have the authority to mandate take-backs. But the federal government and the computer industry are closely watching developments in Europe, which is finalizing a directive that puts the responsibility for computer recycling squarely on producers' shoulders. A similar law in Japan will become fully enforceable early in 2001.

At the core of many voluntary initiatives is the concept of product stewardship, or encouraging computer manufacturers to incorporate environmental responsibility into the entire life cycle of their products: design, use and end-of-life. In doing so, they would have a greater financial incentive to make their computers less toxic, more upgradable and easier to recycle.

The Northwest Product Stewardship Council in Seattle wants to jump-start the process by urging companies like Boeing, REI, Nordstrom and Microsoft to make environmentally responsible computer purchases.

"If we can change the market demand for greener products, then we can change the way the manufacturers are making computers," said David Stitzhal, consultant to the project and president of Full Circle Environmental, a consulting firm. "We hope to raise the bar so manufacturers who have taken the trouble to develop environmentally friendly products will be rewarded for their efforts."

To be most effective, computer recycling is a problem that must be solved at both ends: Build an infrastructure to dispose of old computers, but at the same time make design changes that will make new computers easier and cheaper to recycle.

Several major manufacturers have already phased out stubborn glue adhesives; replaced nuts, screws and bolts with snap- to-fit parts; reduced the number of plastics used; and then labeled those plastics so that they are easier to separate when recycled.

A typical computer is 30 percent to 40 percent plastic, and finding markets for that post-consumer plastic is one of the industry's biggest challenges. Still, it can be done: each month MBA Polymers Inc. in Richmond, Calif., recovers one million pounds of plastic from consumer electronics like C.P.U.'s televisions and telephones. The plastic is then made into pellets and sold through brokers to companies that make products like desk accessories and telephone casings. MBA Polymers does not yet have the volume needed to meet the demands of large computer makers, but according to the company's chief executive, Michael Biddle, it won't be long. "We have had several major manufacturers approach us wanting to sign long-term agreements," he said. "They're very serious." To make it work, MBA Polymers needs to collect tens of millions of pounds of plastics each year.

MBA Polymers, Inc.
500 West Ohio Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
(510) 231-9031 • FAX: (510) 231-0302 • info@mbapolymers.com