Pounds of Trouble
Telecommunication Recycling Companies Are Growing in Number and Volume

By Meagan Harms

            Salvage Telecom recycles a million pounds of telecommunications equipment a year. It is one of many companies that work to recycle telecommunications equipment in an effort to lower the amount of toxic waste that gets dumped into landfills every year. With the rise of technology in the United States comes the hazardous problem of how to dispose of out-of-date technological devices. The United States National Safety Council estimates that 315 million computers are now obsolete.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s eCycling website, the average life span for a personal computer dropped to 2 years in 2005 from 4.5 years in 1992. This accounts for the 40 million units of electronic equipment estimated to be recycled in 2007. Only 9.7 million units were recycled in 1998.

Herman Bearden, owner of Salvage Telecom, grew up in the recycling industry and has been in business for ten years. He has seen the telecommunications recycling industry grow into an environmental necessity. Salvage Telecom is licensed to recycle telecommunications equipment in Tennessee. They are licensed to recycle most electronics, except monitors. The Environmental Protection Agency, computer manufacturers and retail stores are all entering the ring in order to devise ways to safely recycle used telecommunications equipment.

Salvage Telecom works mainly with corporations and pays for the freight on the equipment they are recycling. Seventy-five percent of equipment currently being recycled comes from electronics manufacturers and large organizations, according to the EPA’s eCycling website. Five firms recycle more equipment than all other companies combined and half of the electronic recycling companies are located in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Salvage Telecom competes with the big businesses by disassembling their equipment in the United States on assembly lines instead of paying to ship it overseas.

J. Don McFarland, Vice President of 5R Processors, Ltd., says his company does not feel competitive pressure because it doesn’t use brokers. 5R Processors complete all processes in-house so electronics come in one door and commodities go out another. His customers have different options in how to recycle the equipment. Customer options include an asset recovery program or destructive recycling with end-of-life certification.

Most computer manufacturing companies, like Apple and Hewlett-Packard, deal with consumers who are not willing to pay for the shipment of old equipment back to the manufacturer. Apple recycles its own product but the consumer must buy a $30 mailing label before dropping it off at UPS. Hewlett-Packard and Dell allow the recycling of computer equipment from any manufacturer and charge for each individual item being recycled. According to Apple Computers and Bearden, about 90 percent of what they accept can be recycled. The main problem these companies are trying to solve is how to divert their products from the landfill.

McFarland emphasizes that the evolution of technology has created end-of-life issues for outdated electronics. “Electronics recycling is a relatively new industry. The electronics recycling companies are always  looking toward the next generation of goods to enter the recycling stream.” McFarland believes the future of electronic recycling lies in mandatory recycling for consumers and manufacturers.

“It takes over a thousand pounds of raw material to produce a personal computer system.” says McFarland. Personal computers contain lead, mercury and cadmium, materials which are classified as hazardous waste. California and Massachusetts have already prohibited PC monitors from being dumped in their landfills. According to the Department of Environment and Conservation in Tennessee, about 70 percent of the heavy metal in landfills comes from electronic equipment. Even though computers are not labeled as hazardous waste, materials within them are. The only regulations on telecommunications recycling deal with the volume of recyclables.

The National Recycling Coalition recently partnered with Dell to award 12 grants worth $10,000 each to U.S. communities, universities, and non profit organizations that held computer collection events in 2004. Their goal was to spur interest in end-of-life computer recycling. Four Southeast communities received the grants: the Recycling Market Development Advisory Council of Columbia, South Carolina, the Department of Environmental Quality in Jackson, Mississippi, the City of Knoxville’s Solid Waste Office in Tennessee, and Benjamin E. Mays Center, Tech Corps Georgia, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information on what manufacturers, retailers and communities recycle, visit the National Recycling Coalition’s Electronic Recycling Initiative at www.nrc-recycle.org. For more information on Salvage Telecom, e-mail salvagetelecom@aol.com. For more information on 5R Processors, Ltd., visit www.5rprocessors.com.

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