Shredder holds future for recycling

Machine ensures data bite

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.