A new chance for old computers

A Spokane company has begun collecting discarded personal and business computers and monitors to sell them to offshore parts-recovery operations.

Inland ReTech, which for the past two years has focused on discarded PCs from school districts and businesses, has begun collecting computers and monitors from individuals, said company president Dennis Ford.

The company has just begun adding its name and signs to its North Spokane office building at 928 W. Spofford. Ford allows people to drop off computer parts there during working hours; the company also will arrange pickups, he said.

His plan to generate profits will hinge on his ability to get small businesses and residents to give him their old equipment. What he offers them, in effect, is a price break, since nearly every other recycler charges people something to take a computer or monitor off their hands, said Ford.

Earthworks Recycling of Spokane, for instance, charges $15 to take away a single monitor, or 40 cents a pound for other PC equipment.

Inland ReTech will charge $2 for monitors made before 1996 and $2 for PCs made before 1995, Ford said. It also charges $2 for each Apple device or monitor.

Anything else, in general, the company will take for free.

The goal is to ship containers of shrink-wrapped pallets of those devices to China, he said. Ford hopes to clear several thousand dollars for each container. Inland ReTech will also take units that are salvageable and can be refurbished, then sell them back to area firms, schools or businesses, Ford said.

Recycling old computers is a topic many states and environmental agencies have been scrutinizing for several years. Since 2003, two states — Maine and California — have jumped in with tight restrictions against the disposal of PCs in landfills or dumps.

Just this week in Congress, a House bill was introduced that would set a national $10 recycling fee on the sale of computers. That fee would be used to pay agencies or companies to launch community recycling groups. The new bill, introduced by a Congressman from New York and one from California, remains in committee and has not been moved for further debate.

Spokane’s own recycling problem may not be too many old PCs; it may be the ease with which people dump them now at the waste-to-energy plant on the West Plains. Despite the high levels of toxic lead in monitors and metals in PC cases, there’s no restriction on burning those units at the plant, said Ford.

“We’re one of the few places around where it’s that easy to get rid of these things by throwing them away,” said Ardell Faul, who runs a computer monitor repair and recycling shop in Spokane.

Ford even went to city and county officials who track waste, offering to separate out computers and monitors from waste taken to the facility. “They told me a great big ‘No,’” said Ford. “Any time they or their people touch the waste brought there, it has to go through the (incinerator),” he said he was told.

Ford knows that sending PC parts offshore has been criticized loudly by environmental groups who’ve claimed that practice simply shifts the toxic impact from this country to another location.

Some businesses in offshore countries have been criticized for slipshod environmental practices and for using practices that can endanger workers engaged in parts handling.

Ford said his business partner, Wendy Li from the San Francisco area, has established a business relationship with reputable parts handlers in China and in Hong Kong. In fact, most of the containers Inland ReTech has shipped in recent months have gone to Hong Kong for removal of plastics, glass, metals and other materials.

Ford said he intends to continue monitoring the companies he’ll send his containers to and try to know how well they comply with safe handling of products.

“We’re going on some degree of trust, based on what they tell us they’re doing,” Ford added.

Ford said Inland ReTech will pick up some parts for free in most parts of the city. Residents on the South Hill and outlying areas of Spokane County will pay a pickup charge, however, he said.