ISO Certified Computer Recycling.

So the key here is the old way and the new way. The old way I explain in detail. The new way is the ISO Certification which means the business that handles the computer excess or surplus in a method that has been standardized. Now that the corporations have been educated on the ISO Certification process that is the standard.

All the little shops around the country will not be able to afford the certification process. I would think over 80% of them will go away. It will be over a few years but they will go away. Those have have been certified will become stronger than ever. The investment will be paid back tenfold. It will virtually drive the little guys out of the business.

You can always search the internet for computer recycling and this how most of us are found.

The little guys did it the right way in most cases. I know we did and do but I can't afford the certification process. The days of drilling out hard drives at the customers locations will end and we will go away. It is the horse and buggy days and the automobile is on the horizon.

The cost of the grinders and or shredders will be passed on to the corporations and to the individuals. Oh well times are a changing,

All over the US are businesses that depend on corporations to give and or pay small and large computer recycling companies to take there computer surplus. In most cases the receiving business takes all that can be sold and sells the hardware on all types on different avenues then the balance is sold to those companies that specialize in true and real recycling. Most of the true and real recycling companies are gearing up for the TVs that will come out once the digital feeds are in place.

Most large corporation can save thousands of dollars by hiring someone like myself to guide them through the process of computer and electronics recycling. I know in most cases what they will do and they will do it wrong big time. They need to find a computer recycling business that is willing to put their business on the line that they will indeed do what they say and promise they'll do.

I have seen dealers and or brokers receive computer hardware and once they have taken out the units or parts that they can sell they then take the hardware to the the landfill. I can't say that they all take the product to the landfills what they do is sell it by the pound as either printer scrap .02 per pound or PC scrap at say .08 per pound. Container after container goes over seas.

Metal goes to the local scrap yards which is where it needs to go.

I have been in this business for well over ten years. I originally was in the warehousing and storage of computers and main frames and as that business dies I moved on. Rather than trying to store the new or most active hardware for the dealers and brokers it came to me why not go after what they do not want. I began calling corporations in Atlanta to find out if any had computers that they wanted to go away. Charge a fee no I'll just take them. Well it was done and I now had a large warehouse full of major corporations computer excess or surplus or computer trash.

Way cool now how can I make money? Well the gear tested good and I started selling on EBay. That venture generated me about $5,000.00 a month so I added an employee and that was their assignment. Test it then take a picture and list it on EBay. Once it gets a bid then pull it clean it and box it. Once it is paid for ship it within a day or two.

I then went after more and more. Hiring more and more.

Sales were back up to $35,000.00 a month and I no longer was buying equipment I was going after it and some actually paid me. I continued for ten years doing just this. I ended up stacking the hardware that had no value on pallets and soon I had forty pallets of problems. I then began calling the true recycle companies. These guys were slightly technical and were used to junk. Another avenue opened for us.

These companies pay cash (a magic word) and haul it away and take the computer hardware to the next level of value. Yes value. They take it apart and shred plastic and bail it. They shred metal and bail it and so on. Circuit boards once processed are worth $2.50 a pound. What? So we began a separate method to our madness. Any circuit boards that were easy to remove were removed. I explained to employees that if there was a chance that the board was going to put up a good fight to stay inside the computer and the chances that you were going to be wounded or bleed by taking it out then leave it.

I began looking for companies that would buy the circuit boards. Anyway Good boards are circuit boards that do not have much open area on them. Lay a dime on a circuit board and if it sits on the board and touches no electrical chip or things then odds are it is a bad board. A bad board is found in monitors and or in TVs.

A good board well there are good boards and great boards. These buyers are after boards with the little chips on them. Gold fingers are we talking James Bond? The gold fingers are on the end of the circuit boards that are where this board is snapped into the next board. If you remove it and there are little gold strips alas a great board. The newer boards have silver fingers which are good boards but not great boards. Good boards are worth $2.10 a pound and bad boards are worth $1.00 to $1.50 a pound.

Plastic at this level to my business was worth about $.02 a pound. It has to be clean which means no rubber and or bolts or screws it must be just plastic. Clean plastic wasn't worth processing within my business so pay me the .02 and take at away.

Old keyboards are worth from $.25 each to up to $2.00 each for newer black complete with the cables in bulk.

A CPU out of an old 386 or 486 or even the old Pentium ones had a chip like a wafer. The wafer is worth a whopping $65.00 a pound. Tough to find but well worth it.

Then you can break the gold fingers off the great board and end up with a wonderful bag of gold fingers which is the best.

Did you know the the glass out of CRTs and or monitors that are used when connected to PCs once washed it is good to use again in other glass related products. So the true computer recycle companies break the yoke off the end then they use some type of cutter and remove the outer layer of glass away from the tube itself. I do not know the details but I have seen it in process. So, the biggest buyer of the washed glass was corning. Corning is a glass manufacturer. Now that is awesome to know that the glass is reused. Bottles of all types are made from recycled computer glass.

I searched and search for the Corning and well didn't find them. I did find a huge page of information and in this page may be the buyer of used processed cleaned computer CRT and Super VGA AKA SVGA glass recyclers. Monitor the Future. So this is the answer to recycling the old unwanted monitors. It will cost to get rid of them this way. The next time they tell you that there is a charge this is why. You have to be put on pallets then wrapped to a pallet. Once you have saved 1,600 or so you must pay the freight to get them to a true glass recyclers then you have to pay them. I get calls asking if I take them and I say yes but there is a fee. They tell that is OK they will throw them into a dumpster somewhere.

If you care then it is a cost of doing business. Be happy and pay the $10.00.

Now I have 3 video's at the bottom. One shows hard drive shredding in a serious way. A simple DOD wipe will remove all the data and the hard drives can be sold back into the market. The shredder method creates dust particles and scrap metal which takes product to the end of the line.

Can you imagine spending about $75,000 to $100,000.00 on a machine that shreds hard drives and computers? What these businesses need to do is remove all the sell-able parts and pieces then shred the balance. Maybe the movie clip is just to show you what big money will buy you. The recycling companies must charge a lot of money to pay for one of those beasts. Maintenance and the investment is huge to pay for one of those machines. I have seen one or two grinders that have only been run once or twice otherwise they do not use them. They say they do but without certification you just don't know.

All over the US you'll see recycle companies with a shredder on the news. They will do a dog and pony interview with various local TV channels and we all are quite impressed. Remember how in the world can they pay all the debt they have if they shred the hardware. They are spending lots of money to get the hardware in their possession. Yes some of the drives are shredded. Then what do they do with the hardware to make money? They buy cheap used hard drives and put them back together and sell to the brokers and dealers. This is how they do it. They must buy cheap used hard drives from those businesses that do the DOD wipe.

Do the math charge $1.00 to shred a drive or shall we do it for free? Payment this month on the grinder is $8000.00. Anyway ISO Certification is what you need.

One video shows what happens to some container loads that are sold overseas. Not all but some.

A video that shows why in the world there is a market on the computer boards. How to get the gold and where is it in your computer.

This pretty much details the computer recycling business. The one who first gets it will make the most money if they understand the business.

The hardware received is sold to brokers and dealers throughout the world. The balance is sold off in parts and pieces. The balance is sold to the true recycling companies. They are the ones that make money out of nothing. High labor and taking things to the final level is where they do well. They aren't as profitable as the business that gets the hardware first and I have tried to teach the true recyclers how to do it but they just do not understand so I gave up well they laid me off actually. I would risk a law suit and once they pay me all the money I am owed I will go into that.

Check out Earth911.org and they you can find the real recycling businesses. One thing to ask your recycling business is...........so do you sell containers of product going overseas? If they say yes then ask them are you ISO certified? If they say yes then your safe and if they say not them one day you maybe on the news.

I have read some of the blogs here on this subject and they do not have as I see it first hand knowledge. A phone call to Staples and or Costco or whomever is on any list that we are guided to are not policed. You mail your cell phones into a business and once they have 25,000 of them they in most cases sell the phones and they will be in the hand someone in a another country.

I think the entire process of electronic recycling needs to be revamped 100%. My business as an example is listed on the Costco web site. I get lots of phone calls every week and people give me cell phones and cameras or laptops. I take them and give them a certification that I will not put them in a landfill and I go and sell them which is legal.This is what the EPA wants.

I did not nor have ever polluted the earth with my electronic waste. My business never ships containers overseas. It is scary and I will not do it. I do not believe in it.

You must be careful of where the computer hardware is going and receive a fully enforceable contract that contains enough information that you will be safe. One of the last steps in the security of your computer surplus or computer excess or whatever it is called is to use a computer recycling company that has ISO certifications. This is the biggest step to insuring that your hardware is not being handled the wrong way.

Here is the link to the EPA Computer Recycling Rules and or Details page that describes the Federal Government stance. The page has lots of data and a PDF to down load if you are so inclined.

Did you know that the EPA has a few different classes for the computer recycle companies. One is monitored and the others are not. As long as you have an EPA number then your good. Anyway it all will be addressed by an upgraded standard called the ISO certification.

I hope everyone enjoyed these details. It is a bit more in depth than others blogs addressing this topic.

Thank You