Your computer may be outdated, but the parts have value

If your business is like most others, you probably have a closet ... or a shelf ... or a corner ... where all the misfit computers hang out, collecting dust.

Most people probably don't know that every single computer component - from the plastic housing to the glass monitors, wiring and circuitry boards - can be recycled.

“There's a process that grinds the wires and separates the metal from the cable coverings,” said Michael Menneke, an environmental specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Menneke said it's often less expensive for manufacturers to buy recycled copper or aluminum than to pay a corporation to mine it from the earth.

Rubber cable coverings can be used to make tennis shoes.

And circuitry boards can be ground and smelted back into their base metals, like lead, silver and nickel.

Ground glass can be used in place of silica sand in some mining activities.

Every color monitor and television set has between six and eight pounds of lead, which can be a hazardous waste if allowed to leach into the soil.

That's why both federal and state law requires all businesses, from the smallest one-man-operation to the largest corporation to “manage their electronic waste in a way that it doesn't endanger human health or the environment,” Menneke said.

“The only people who are legally allowed to throw monitors away are households and farms,” he added.

But Menneke said many business owners aren't aware of the laws and don't know what to do with their obsolete computer equipment. Often, they just end up storing it or throw it away.

With no national e-scrap solution on the horizon, a group of Missouri stakeholders from the electronic recycling industry has been meeting regularly to develop a way to better manage all the electronic waste generated by the state's businesses and homes, rather than sending those resources to the landfill.

“Instead of doing nothing, Missouri decided to pull together a stakeholders group,” Menneke explained. “Only two other states have done that ... including nearly every possible interested party.”

The issue is a contentious one, because electronics manufacturers worry a new solution will be expensive for them and recyclers are passionate advocates.

But Menneke is convinced the group can reach consensus.

Although the group isn't looking at only two solutions, two primary ones have been used in other states.

At least one state instituted “advanced recycling fees,” which requires a computer buyer to pay an additional $5-$8 dollars when he or she buys a machine.

Funds raised are funneled to programs that “de-manufacture” the computers into recyclable parts.

(A side note: people in the business use the term “recycler” to refer to the person or entity that actually reuses the new resource; a “de-manufacturer” is an outfit that breaks a computer down to its component parts.)

In the past, Missouri has had trouble with de-manufacturers who neglect their inventory, leaving old computers laying inappropriately and hazardously in fields and barns.

Menneke said Columbia's Mid-Mo Recycling is a certified firm with an excellent reputation.

He added the state's certification process is important because it helps prevent problem sites and guarantees that materials are handled properly, both from an environmental perspective and a business outlook.

Wiping out proprietary data is a big concern in the industry.

“The big corporations like it, because they don't want it ending up in Asia or in a field,” said Menneke.

A five-state Midwestern group is considering a producer-responsiblity model.

In a nutshell, manufacturers would be responsible for recycling electronics, based on their sales here.

Stan Fredericks, owner of Mid-Mo recycling, watches where he backs up as he unloads a large crate of electronics from a truck at his recycling center on Brown Station Road in Columbia. (Deborah Cote/News Tribune photo)