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The Evolution Of E-Recycling And How It’s Used Today

Bay Area Recycling for Charities has been recycling for five years.

“We recycle all kind of different things and then we donate our profits to local charities,”

said Andy Gale, the president of BARC.

They’ve seen just about everything, but president Andy Gale says their fastest growing segment is e-recycling.

“It’s really simple, actually, it’s anything with a cord and anything with a battery, so if it has a cord or a battery then it’s electronic waste recycling, it’s going to be disposed of,” he said.

You could drop off laptops, desktops, TVs, even small kitchen appliances and mattresses.

David Grix will be waiting for you at the front of BARC, ready to break down your e-waste.

“Inside the CPU there are various plastic and metal items that we remove cut the wires off if need be, then it gets recycled with our plastics and metal,” he said.

Once it’s completely broken down, the pieces are shipped to bigger cities and sometimes used to make refurbished products.

Parts are build up — or shredded down.

“They’ll run all their laptops through a shredder and then shred it down to an eighth of an inch,” he said.

Gale has seen the evolution in the way these electronics are made in the first place.

“They’ve also gotten a lot smarter about how much of those precious metals they put into those things so the ones that have the highest value for us are like the 1990’s desktop computers,” Gale said.

First of all….

“Recycling is good and you should always recycle everything,” he said.

And the bottom line.

“We live in a really special place here in Northern Michigan and we want to preserve our beautiful and natural resources,” he said.

 

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