e-waste, metal recycling, electronic waste, department of ecology, spokane incinerator

No one in this area is getting rich recycling old computers, printers and monitors.

Despite slightly higher prices worldwide for the precious metals, copper and steel used to make computers, the typical personal computer or Apple desktop unit is worth relatively little in recycled value.

Inland ReTech, a Spokane Valley company, estimates that a five-year-old PC, stripped down to basic parts and then sold to scrap yards and resellers, generates about $1.70. That return, said Inland ReTech owner Dennis Ford, doesn’t include labor costs.

If the same computer is left intact and bulk-shipped with dozens of other PCs to much larger companies in the United States or overseas, the same computer is worth about $3, Ford said. The estimates of $1.70 to $3 per computer are how much Ford gets from those handlers. Those larger firms, in turn, will process the materials and get a larger return for their effort.

Local recyclers like Ford cover their handling and transportation costs by charging between $2.50 and $4 per computer (higher for monitors) when residents drop them off at their warehouses. Businesses pay slightly more per computer for discarding the same equipment.

Local PC recyclers go to the trouble for two reasons, said Erik Bisiar, owner of Recycle Techs, another Spokane Valley company handling e-waste. “We do it because we handle it correctly; we know it’s been (processed) properly. We don’t want to entrust it to someone else,” he said.

Secondly, computer recyclers resell newer-vintage computers that are brought in by customers. Instead of tearing them down for scrap, Bisiar refurbishes and sells them at his shop, sometimes for as high as $100 to $150 per computer.

While recycling can be profitable for business, state officials want to encourage the practice in order to achieve a larger goal — keeping toxic and heavy metals out of landfills and incinerators and reusing the raw materials.

Washington state law requires businesses to safely dispose of any hazardous waste, including computers. Spokane’s waste-burning incinerator on the West Plains allows residents — not businesses — to dump computer parts at cost, based on weight.

In Kootenai County, residents but not businesses can take electronic components to transfer stations at no cost. The only commercial location for dropping off e-waste is the Coeur d’Alene Staples store.

Eventually, incinerators will not accept that e-waste, say statewide solid waste managers.

In 2006, Washington legislators passed a law that takes effect in 2009, giving consumers the chance to drop off e-waste for free at designated recycling plants. The goal is to encourage recycling and reuse of PC components and remove them from the waste stream, said Jay Shepard, a Department of Ecology spokesman in Olympia.

That law means computer manufacturers will be billed for the volume of waste their products generate across the state at recycling locations. That money will cover the cost of handling those products at businesses like Inland ReTech; manufacturers, of course, will add those costs to the price tag of products sold in Washington, said Shepard.

Idaho has not considered a similar e-waste bill.

It isn’t the case that nearly every recycled electronic component ends up heading to China, said Ford and others involved in the recycling business.

Circuit boards, memory sticks and processors that use silicon and metals (copper, silver and gold) frequently go to smelters in Canada or Europe. Scrap handlers, like American Recycling in the Spokane Valley, end up selling the steel, aluminum and brass from PCs to smelters “all across the place, inside the United States and overseas,” said Roger Baldwin, the plant’s manager.

Ford at Inland ReTech does send some recycled e-waste to China. He has used materials companies in Florida, New Jersey and Canada, but Ford has found that the major buyers for used PC parts are in China.

Added Craig Lorch, manager of Seattle-based Total Reclaim, a major Northwest recycler: “China is essentially driving the world market for metals today.”

The large volume of recycled e-waste sent to China has spurred criticism by activists who say that country has numerous companies using low-wage workers who handle those materials in unsafe, unregulated conditions.

Ford said he’s sensitive to that criticism. His primary handler of recycled parts is based in Hong Kong and has proven reliable in protecting its workers and the environment, Ford said.

“There are good companies, and bad companies there,” Ford said, “and we work with the Environmental Protection Center of Hong Kong to find who the good companies are.”