Electronic-waste recycling market gets jolt

Two new Springfield companies are honing in on the profits behind electronic waste, a reportedly $10 billion global industry last year.

According to Albany, N.Y.-based Transparency Market Research, the global e-waste recycling and reuse services market is on pace to grow 13 percent to $18.2 billion by 2017.

The latest player on the e-waste scene in Springfield is Complete Electronics Recycling, 2935 W. Chestnut Expressway. Owner David Kramer, a former employee of Computer Recycling Center and construction worker, brought more options to the market with his March launch.

“The goal is keeping (electronics) out of the landfill,” Kramer said. “The more convenient it is to drop things off, the more likely people are to do it. There’s no sense in throwing away something that can help keep jobs in the area.

“There’s no sense in throwing money away.”

Another newcomer to the market is E-Waste International LLC. In March 2012, owner Chris Meyers opened a 6,000-square-foot warehouse at 510 N. Main Ave. with three employees.

E-Waste International General Manager Jason McCallister said the market presented an opportunity based on the sheer volume of materials that end up in landfills.

“We ran across a statistic that said 80 percent of all unwanted and discarded electronics end up in a landfill. That seemed like a pretty big number to us,” McCallister said of the firm that today has grown to employ seven full-time workers.

He said the company pulls in an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 pounds of electronic equipment per month and refurbishes much of the equipment in-house, reselling it to walk-in customers.

“With the electronics we receive, our first goal is to repurpose them into the community, so there is a retail aspect to our facility,” McCallister said of the computers, monitors, TVs, DVD players and printers often dropped off. “If a machine is too old, too far gone or not viable to turn around, then it will truly get recycled and all of its components will be broken down and sent for metal extraction and so forth.”

Computer Recycling Center owner Luke Westerman said the 12-year-old recycling firm welcomes competition, but he hopes as new recyclers enter the fray, they are not taking shortcuts – a concern he has toward independent recyclers.

Westerman’s store, 1434 N. National Ave., along with E-Waste International, Altec Solutions Group Inc. and Branson-based Midwest Wholesalers Inc., is among a handful of companies in southwest Missouri registered with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for adhering to safe technology recycling, disposal and remanufacturing processes. Westerman, who has said his firm has diverted 1 million pounds of solid material from landfills, also is working to get CRC nationally certified, so customers can trust his for-profit firm is following ethical practices.

“There are people who will take the metal on the outside of units such as with (personal computers), for instance, and they will properly recycle the metals, but they won’t properly recycle the critical pieces of the assemblies,” Westerman said, noting CRC is seeking R2 certification, one of two industry-standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “The reason for that is to make it easier on the general public who shouldn’t have to be completely educated in electronics recycling.

“Virtually everything we handle here could be hazardous if not handled properly.”

At Complete Electronics, Kramer said he currently is in the process of registering with the DNR, so he too can demonstrate to customers that equipment is being broken down correctly and shipped to the appropriate vendor.

The right vendor is necessary, Kramer said, because it is not unusual for older TVs to contain up to 10 pounds of lead. Both Kramer and Westerman’s companies send the recyclable lead to Doe Run Co., a Herculaneum-based lead mining and metal production company.

“They take all the CRT glass that we send them – the cathode-ray tubes – and they use those as flux in the refining process … so the lead and the glass is fully recycled,” Westerman said. “It is kind of neat because they work with people who are making batteries – for instance, NorthStar Battery in Springfield. So, you could potentially bring your TV into us, we would break it down, send the CRT or lead-glass tube to them, and they would further break it down, process it and recover the lead. Then the lead could potentially come back to Springfield to NorthStar Battery and be used to make a new battery.”

Kramer said big-box retailers such as Staples and Best Buy have gotten in the e-waste game in recent years, too.

Westerman said working with the right remanufacturers, and working in bulk, are the keys to success. “We try to move large amounts of material. It takes a lot to make this work, so we have to work in large quantities of materials.” he said.[[In-content Ad]]