E-Waste Recycling Machine

Electronics waste, commonly known as e-scrap or e-waste, is the trash we generate from surplus, broken, and obsolete electronic devices. Electronics contains various toxic and hazardous chemicals and materials that are released into the environment if we do not dispose of them properly. E-waste or electronics recycling is the process of recovering material from old devices to use in new products.

Step-by Step Process of E-waste Recycling

The e-waste recycling process is highly labor intensive and goes through several steps. Below is the step-by-step process of how e-waste is recycled.

Picking Shed

When the e-waste items arrive at the recycling plants, the first step involves sorting all the items manually. Batteries are removed for quality check.

Disassembly

After sorting by hand, the second step involves a serious labor intensive process of manual dismantling. The e-waste items are taken apart to retrieve all the parts and then categorized into core materials and components. The dismantled items are then separated into various categories into parts that can be re-used or still continue the recycling processes.

First size reduction process

Here, items that cannot be dismantled efficiently are shredded together with the other dismantled parts to pieces less than 2 inches in diameter. It is done in preparation for further categorization of the finer e-waste pieces.

Second size reduction process

The finer e-waste particles are then evenly spread out through an automated shaking process on a conveyor belt. The well spread out e-waste pieces are then broken down further. At this stage, any dust is extracted and discarded in a way that does not degrade the environmentally.

Over-band Magnet

At this step, over-band magnet is used to remove all the magnetic materials including steel and iron from the e-waste debris.

Non-metallic and metallic components separation.

The sixth step is the separation of metals and non-metallic components. Copper, aluminum, and brass are separated from the debris to only leave behind non-metallic materials. The metals are either sold as raw materials or re-used for fresh manufacture.

Water Separation.

As the last step, plastic content is separated from glass by use of water. One separated, all the materials retrieved can then be resold as raw materials for re-use. The products sold include plastic, glass, copper, iron, steel, shredded circuit boards, and valuable metal mix.

Recycling e-waste enables us to recover various valuable metals and other materials from electronics, saving natural resources (energy), reducing pollution, conserving landfill space, and creating jobs. According to the EPA, recycling one million laptops can save the energy equivalent of electricity that can run 3,657 U.S. households for a year. Recycling one million cell phones can also recover 75 pounds of gold, 772 pounds of silver, 35,274 pounds of copper, and 33 pounds of palladium.

On the other end, e-waste recycling helps cut down on production waste. According to the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, it takes 1.5 tons of water, 530 lbs of fossil fuel, and 40 pounds of chemicals to manufacture a single computer and monitor. 81% of the energy associated with a computer is used during production and not during operation.