By Heather Clancy | June 11, 2010, 12:10pm PDT

If you live in New York state and have neglected your spring cleaning, you may want to hold onto your old electronics doo-dads a bit longer: Your state just passed what some are calling the “most progressive” electronics waste recycling law in the country.

There are a couple of things that make this law unique (New York obviously learned from other progressive states on this matter, including Washington and Minnesota:

• Technology manufacturers will be required to reuse a certain amount of electronic waste each year. The amount that they have to reuse will be based on market share.
• Manufacturers that collect more stuff than they have to, will get recycling “credits” for doing so. If a manufacturer doesn’t reach its quota, it faces fines.
• Consumers have five years to get used to this idea: After Jan. 15, 2015, they will be prohibited from dumping computers, printers, televisions, DVD players, MP3 players and such into landfills. Big appliances such as refrigerators or microwaves, however, are exempt.

Link to Article:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/green/almost-halfway-there-new-york-becomes-23rd-state-to-adopt-e-waste-recycling-law/12365?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zdnet%2Fgreen+%28ZDNet+GreenTech%29

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Finally, a place for unwanted microwaves to end their lives with dignity

Got an old microwave that you want to toss? Chucking it with the rest of the trash will result in a slow death in a landfill. And don’t think of putting it out with the recycling – no such program exists in Canada. (Consumers have to pay to have their old microwaves recycled.) What’s an environmentalist to do?

Source: nationalpost.com

http://www.geepecosys.com/en/about-us/news-2009.aspx

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The Hamos ERP recycling system is designed for economic recycling of WEEE scrap (Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment). The materials are processed into highly concentrated metallic and non-metallic fractions. The ERP system will give you a maximum recovery of marketable metal concentrates at lowest recycling cost.

The Hamos ERP I recycles 2,000 … 4,000 kg/hr of heavy WEEE-scrap like

• Computers/photocopiers
• Consumer electrics and electronics
• Household appliances and many more

The Hamos ERP II recycles 1,000 … 2,000 kg/hr of

• Printed circuit boards
• Light electronics
• Shredder residues and many more

With the Hamos ERP system you will achieve

• Selected material fractions like: motors, transformers, stainless steel, coarse metals, printed circuit boards, coarse plastics etc.
• Highly concentrated non-ferrous fractions (containing copper, aluminum and precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, palladium etc.)
• Ferrous products
• Non-metallic products (mostly metal-free fine plastics, epoxy, glass fibers, ceramics, dust etc.)

Details

The Hamos ERP recycling plant is specifically designed for the low cost recycling of approx. 2,000 kg/hr up to 4,000 kg/hr of heavy WEEE scrap and 1,000 … 2,000 kg/hr of light WEEE scrap into clean metallic and non-metallic fractions.

With Hamos ERP I non-disassembled electric items are shredded by a special heavy duty crusher. Coarse ferrous and non-ferrous parts are taken out automatically. Additional hand-picking stations allow to sort out additional valuable fractions like motors, transformers, stainless steel parts etc.

The Hamos ERP II is designed to process “light” electric and electronic materials and shredder residues from ERP I or similar sources. A heavy duty hammer-mill grinds the material to achieve separation of inert materials and metals. In addition wires and other interlocking materials are conglobated for better separation. The ground material is subsequently screened and de-dusted. From this fraction the valuable metal fraction is separated, using electrostatic and gravimetric separation technologies.

Advantages of the ERP System:

• High recovery rate of metals (including precious metals)
• Clean metallic concentrates can be sold easily
• Recovery of steel, copper and aluminum
• Clean non-metallic fractions
• Heavy duty system, easy to operate
• Economic solution with low recycling cost
• Dry recycling process, no environmental hazards
• Reduced material size saves shipping cost
• Certified destruction of WEEE production waste
• Special designed ERP systems for higher capacities are also available

Products which cannot be recycled (by ERP):

• CRT monitors
• Electronic products with toxic contents
• Products with wet and oily fluids

Technical Data

Energy Consumption (400 Volt, 3 phase):

• ERP I: approx. 350 kW
• ERP II: approx. 300 kW

Achievable Throughputs:

• ERP I: 2,000…4,000 kg/hr
• ERP II: 1,000…2,000 kg/hr

Required Space:
The complete Hamos ERP I/II plant (without stock for raw and finished products, runways for fork-lifts etc.) requires a minimum space of 20 x 50 m. The required minimum ceiling height is 10 m.

Other Equipment:
In addition Hamos supplies the following systems for WEEE scrap recycling:

• CSS for CRT monitor recycling
• KWS electrostatic separators for fine metal recovery
• EKS electrostatic separators for plastic-plastic sorting
• ECS eddy current separators
• Magnets (permanent and electro-magnets)

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1 | Members take sides on NRC’s future

Just one week after the National Recycling Coalition floated the possibility of a merger with Keep America Beautiful as a way of alleviating the financial hardships currently plaguing the organization, NRC members have begun sounding off in droves. Preliminary findings of a poll administered by Resource Recycling indicate that, of the 703 NRC members who replied at the time of this writing, over two-thirds are against any merger.

“KAB’s mission is litter reduction whereas NRC’s has always been about promoting recycling as a beneficial alternative to raw materials extraction,” commented NRC member Mark Loughmiller of the Arcata Community Recycling Center in California. “Litter reduction is a side benefit of the recycling process but is not the motivator for those within the industry.”

Other survey comments from NRC members were more blunt: “I don’t think that watering down the NRC with a KAB partnership is wise because of the headaches associated with this organization!” writes Bryce Hulsey of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “There would be a better alliance with the bottle bill folks and SWANA.”

Dissent was not uniform among members, however. “While a national forum for recycling is necessary, I think local issues are also important,” said Adam Schlachter of Norseman Plastics. “One of the benefits that a NRC/KAB merger will provide is locally-driven execution. Some of the major issues that could be tacked include a buy-recycled marketplace push, market development initiatives, regional recycling initiatives, etc. Most KAB groups are members of state trade associations (which in turn join NRC) and so there is definite benefit by pushing national ideas to local affiliates for execution.”

Interestingly enough, the percentages are roughly reversed among non-NRC members surveyed. The majority — 58 percent — of the 480 non-members polled support a potential NRC/KAB deal, with many of those responses coming from KAB-active cities. 67 percent of NRC members oppose any potential deal.

Averaged together, only 43 percent of all respondents indicated they would support a merger between NRC and KAB. Another similar survey of 117 industry members by Waste & Recycling News indicated a somewhat greater disparity, with only 26.5 percent supporting a NRC/KAB merger.

Link: 

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs003/1101941066519/archive/1102581541779.html

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The Basel Action Network is pleased to announce the solution to one of the most serious toxic waste issues of our time:

The e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling and Reuse of Electronic Equipment®

The Standard is the result of long collaboration between the environmental community and leaders in the recycling, auditing, occupational health, data security, and manufacturing industries as well as from the accredited third party certification industry. It is the standard that will be applied in the e-Stewards third party audited, accredited certification for electronics recyclers that will be begin in early 2010.

Two documents are now available:

The complete e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling and Reuse of Electronic Equipment (which contains the entire ISO 14001 standard) that serves as the basis for official certifications. Our use of ISO proprietary language and our licensing of it from ANSI requires a purchase price. To purchase, click here to go to the purchase page, where you will see a “Buy Now” button. Or, send a check for $125 dollars payable to The Basel Action Network, 122 South Jackson Street, Suite 320, Seattle, WA, 98104, along with an email address and we will send you a PDF copy.

An excerpted version of the complete Standard, which contains all the industry-specific e-Stewards performance requirements, but only summarizes the ISO requirements. This version may not be used for the purposes of certification. The purpose of this excerpted document is to provide access to information about the specific e-Stewards requirements that are built into the ISO requirements for an environmental management system. This version is available at no cost and can be freely distributed. Click here to download.

See www.e-Stewards.org for more information:

Link: 

http://electronic-recycling.blogspot.com/2009/07/e-steward-standard-is-finished.html

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