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E-Waste Systems, Inc. EWSI
Posted On: 01/19/2014 4:13:37 PM
Post# of 3844
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Posted By: 12 year pipedream
http://cs.furman.edu/~chealy/fys1107/PAPERS/recycle.pdf
(shredders, competition and such..)


Overcapacity isn’t preventing

Canadian-based recycler Global

Electric Electronic Processing

(GEEP) from investing millions

in new equipment. GEEP, part

of Barrie Metals Group in On

-

tario, operates a state-of-the-art

370,000 square foot facility in

Durham, North Carolina. The

company processes discarded

telecom equipment for corpo

-

rate clients and recently opened

a $4 million chain shredder and

hammer mill-based processing

line. Material from the chain

shredder is sorted and sent to

the hammer mill, where it’s sized

into fine gravel and mechanical

-

ly separated into ferrous, non-

ferrous, and plastic material. The

harvested material (steel, copper,

aluminum, and glass) is sold as

raw feedstock to manufacturers.

The company is also building a

facility to convert recycled mixed

plastic into diesel fuel



A

typical PC consists of 23 percent

plastic, 32 percent ferrous met

-

als, 18 percent nonferrous met

-

als, and 12 percent electronic

boards (gold, palladium, silver,

and platinum).

Recycling plants operate heavy-

duty shredders to reduce e-waste

into uniform rough pieces. Sort

-

ing the resulting shred is increas

-

ingly profitable. A few years ago,

the rare metal indium used in

LCD screen mobile phones sold

for less than $100/kg. Between

2005 and 2007, the price fluctuat

-

ed between $700/kg and $1,000/

kg (see http://minerals.usgs.gov/

minerals/pubs/commodity/indium/

indiumcs07.pdf). Analysts ex

-

pect the demand for indium to

increase as companies ramp up

large-scale manufacturing of thin-

film solar technology.



Given the considerable

opportunities of e-waste recy

-

cling, some companies have in

-

vested in new technology that

sorts additional materials.


One of the most advanced re

-

covery systems currently on the

market is the Titech X-Tract

Separator and Finder. Wendt

Corporation, the US distribu

-

tor, says the X-Tract and Finder

pick up where the ECS leaves

off. The Finder recovers most of

the stainless steel missed by the

ECS and the X-Tract separates

99 percent of the aluminum

from heavier metals. The X-

Tract (see Figure 2) sends x-rays

through unsorted nonferrous

metal shred, using receivers

to turn the x-rays into high-

resolution x-ray images, and the

machine sorts the material by

comparing the relative bright

-

ness of the images. The higher

the atomic density of the mate

-

rial, the darker the image.

The X-Tract, equipped with a

fiber optics high-speed computer

control system, has a hefty price

tag (about $700,000, depending

on the configuration), but recov

-

ers up to 2,000 lbs (1,000 kg) of

valuable metals per truckload of

ECS waste. Prices of scrap metal

have soared in recent years, in

part because of demand from

China. The US exports more

than $1 billion of scrap to China

annually.

Plastic recycling technology is

also showing progress, in large

part due to the WEEE Direc

-

tive. Sims Group developed new

technology to identify and sepa

-

rate the various plastics found in

electronics devices.


the ultimate win

-

ners will no doubt be global re

-

cycling giants like Sims, GEEP,

and ARC. With their ability to

industrialize the process, and to

squeeze every last piece of pre

-

cious metal out of e-waste, they

will ultimately put the backyard

recyclers out of business







(repost thx Ustmel)













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