Posts Tagged ‘recycling’

Source

The News and Observer

http://www.newsobserver.com/

By Wade Rawlins, Staff Writer
Published: Sep 21, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 21, 2006 05:34 AM

Shredder holds future for recycling

A Bobcat tractor scooped a load of computers, office telephones and keyboards off a factory floor at Research Triangle Park and dumped them onto a conveyor belt.

Up they inched into a 22-foot-tall industrial shredder, where a huge chain with links bigger than basketballs smashed the electronics into shards of metal and plastic about four inches long. A second process reduced the shards to chips the size of fine gravel.

With the wave of his hand, Johnnie Cox, operations manager at Global Electric Electronic Processing Inc., initiated a new era in electronic recycling in the Triangle.

The company is part of a new breed of sophisticated scrap dealers that specialize in recycling electronic components and ensuring that sensitive information doesn’t end up in someone else’s hands. Hard drives hold that stuff forever, so when computers wear out, businesses such as banks and medical offices can’t simply junk the machines.

Now they can shred them.

GEEP, part of Barrie Metals Group based in Ontario, Canada, has invested about $4 million in the shredder and hammer mill. The investment will greatly increase the amount of electronics GEEP can recycle to more than 24 tons a day, and it plans to invest in converting plastic into diesel fuel.

GEEP charges companies between 25 and 35 cents per pound for smashing computers to splinters, said Dan Roe, general manager of GEEP.

With the new machinery and greater processing capacity, the company plans to start accepting electronics from the public in coming months and to compete for local government contracts for electronics recycling.

“The GEEP investment is quite a remarkable thing for North Carolina,” said Scott Mouw, state recycling coordinator. “Shredders of this size and magnitude are not widespread in the U.S. For us to get one here is quite a coup.”

America’s love affair with electronics has created mountains of e-waste as new and better gadgets replace older models. The obsolete computers, fax machines and televisions pose new challenges to keep them out of landfills, where they can leak lead, cadmium, mercury and other harmful metals.

“People are realizing we don’t need to stick that stuff in the ground for our grandchildren to worry about,” Roe said. “In the next five years, electronics recycling will be one of the fastest-growing industries in the country. Anybody you talk to has a computer in the attic they don’t know what to do with.”

The recycling should help reduce the volume of e-waste going into landfills, and in time provide a new outlet to the public to dispose of computers.

Triangle residents tossed out more than 1.3 million pounds of electronics last year, county landfill collection records show. Much of that material was recycled in Wake, Durham and Orange counties, which pay recycling companies to haul off the materials. But most counties in the state do not have permanent electronics recycling programs.

Nationally, about 2.5 million tons of consumer electronics are thrown out a year, and only about 10 percent of that gets recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency estimates that nearly 250 million personal computers will become obsolete in the next 5 years.

And that’s just computers. Add in 128 million cell phones that are retired a year, along with untold millions of other electronic gizmos, and the mountain of e-trash grows.

About 400 companies in the United States recycle electronics, according to the trade group International Association of Electronics Recyclers. Many computer and cell phone manufacturers also operate recycling programs.

Business is evolving

Since coming to the Triangle in 2002, GEEP’s main income has been handling discarded electronics from high-tech companies in Research Triangle Park. Heaps of disassembled computers and plastic computer cases cover the plant floor.

The plant recycles electronics from about 30 companies, Roe said, with some electronics shipped from other states.

Some of the businesses, such as banks and health services companies, have sensitive financial information on computers, and they want the electronics shredded as though they were paper files.

Until now, 20 workers at GEEP disassembled computers and other electronics by hand, to recover materials such as steel, copper and aluminum. They processed about 3,500 pounds a day — just a fraction of what the shredder will do. Then the electronics were shipped to the company’s Canadian headquarters for disassembly and shredding.

With the new machinery, the company has added 12 employees.

The recovered steel, copper, aluminum and glass are resold as raw materials to manufacturers to use in making new products.

Mixed plastics are among the most difficult materials to resell. Within a year, GEEP plans to start installing a facility to convert recycled mixed plastic into diesel fuel. Roe expects the company will increase to about 100 employees when it starts producing diesel fuel.

“We really should have an impact,” Roe said.

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MRC Elects GEEP Exec to Board of Directors

The Michigan Recycling Coalition has elected Jack Iwema, GM of GEEP Michigan, Warren, Mich., to its board of directors. Iwema has been involved in the environmental services sector for 35 years.

GEEP Michigan is the Midwest affiliate of GEEP Global, which is headquartered in Barrie, Ontario. GEEP recycles electronic waste, wire & cable into commodities with a zero landfill objective.

The appointment reflects the growing concern for proper management of electronic waste in Michigan.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

http://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/news.asp?ID=15349

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GEEP Electric and Electronic Waste Recycling Facility

The Global Electric and Electronic Processing Inc. (GEEP) recycling facility is the newest addition to the Edmonton Waste Management Centre.

Using cutting edge processes and equipment, the 45,000 square foot facility is expected to process 30,000 tonnes per year of old computers, televisions, and a wide range of electrical and electronic waste materials for recycling.

Processes and equipment used at the state of the art facility include:

• Centrifugal Separation
• Plastics Shredder
• CRT Processing
• Chain Shredder
• De-Reeler
• Baler

The facility is built and operated by GEEP Alberta Inc – a subsidiary of GEEP Inc, an international e-waste recycler based in Barrie Ontario. It is the first e-waste recycling facility to be built by GEEP Inc in western Canada.

GEEP is a registered processor under Alberta’s electronics program which is administered by Alberta Recycling Management Authority.

What can be recycled at GEEP?:

• small kitchen appliances
• audio and video equipment and televisions
• personal care appliances (hair dryers, shavers, etc. )
• other electrical household tools (vacuums, irons, floor polishers)
• electrical power tools
• telecommunications equipment – telephones, cell phones
• computer and home office equipment
• computer components
• photocopiers, fax machines and similar office electronics
• industrial electrical tools
• specialty equipment containing electrical motors, switches and other components with material value

A worker disassembles a computer monitor at the new GEEP electronic and electric waste recycling facility.

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Why Use EBAN?

Due to government legislation and concerns for client data protection, data breaches have become unacceptable; therefore, certifying the destruction of client data left on decommissioned computers is absolutely necessary. The challenge is to automate data destruction so it’s both cost effective and provides an audit trail for legal compliance. EBAN does all of this and more.

Product Summary

EBAN 2.0 For Mass Drive Wiping is one of the most effective ways to simultaneously overwrite data on multiple hard-drives. It’s Department of Defense 5220.22-M and NIST 800-88 compliant. EBAN also has advanced reporting capabilities that automatically record pass/fail of the overwrite and harvest a complete hardware manifest. EBAN is a proven product with units of code that have been used millions of times.

The Technology

EBAN runs on a server (a laptop or desktop computer) and sends the EBAN data destruction kernel to each target hard-drive (see Figure 1 on reverse). In this way, it can wipe as many hard-drives as are linked to the server. EBAN can wipe hard drives in the computer chassis (desktops and laptops) or it can overwrite loose hard drives.

Reporting

EBAN will automatically record the make, model and serial number of every operational hard drive and alerts the operator of bad or failing hard-drives. In addition, this information can be linked to the asset tag of the individual computer. EBAN also pulls a full hardware manifest that includes processor, RAM, motherboard, etc (see Figure 2 on reverse). Manifest reports are an excellent tool for asset managers who need to do full reconciliations and computer re-marketers who need to perform equipment valuations. The ability of EBAN to create automated, accurate reports is not only a time savings, but provides crucial documentation that mitigates future risk and liability. EBAN reports can be exported or printed in industry standard formats.

Cost & Licensing

EBAN pricing is volume based. As the volume increases, the price per drive decreases. One year Enterprise and Site licenses are available, as are 14-day free trials.

Additional Information

Figure 1– EBAN Process Overview

Figure 2– Hardware Manifest Report

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Sony Canada’s recycling & trade-in programs work to divert end-of-life products from landfills. Sony Canada’s programs include:
• Recycling End-of-Life Products
 FAQs
• Product Stewardship Program
• Notebook Trade-in Program
Recycling End-of-life Products

See Full Article Here
Network of non-retail collection sites Sony Canada has expanded its recycling program to include the collection of ALL Sony products, at no charge. Sony Canada, in partnership with Global Electric Electronic Processing Inc. (GEEP) has established a network of collection sites across Canada. To find a collection site nearest you, click here.

Sony Style retail store recycling:
All handheld Sony electronics will be accepted for recycling, at no charge, at all Sony Style retail stores across Canada. End-of-life handheld electronics include camcorders, cameras, Walkman personal stereos, PDAs, and cordless phones.
Cellular phones and portable rechargeable batteries can be brought to any Sony Style retail store to be recycled safely. This program supports all phones and batteries regardless of brand and is free of charge. The Call2Recycle™ program is a collaborative between manufactures like Sony and the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation to promote cellular phone and rechargeable battery recycling.

Mail in-program
All Sony products can be mailed to Sony’s service provider, GEEP, for recycling. Shipping costs are not covered by the program.
You can mail your Sony products to:
Sony Recycling Program
C/O GEEP
220 John Street
Barrie, ON
L4N 2L2
IMPORTANT: Please ensure you backup any software and stored data or images that you wish to retain and delete all stored data and images from products and media before you submit the item for recycling. These items will be disassembled as part of the recycling process and any remaining stored data or images may be accessed by agents of the recycler. Sony Canada cannot retrieve items that have been sent for recycling.

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