Arsenic in electronics, printers, etc - Page 2

Calm down girl. They're just trying to make a point how government and big business is just ridiculous sometimes. Government has their political agenda, and big business is usually motivated financially. Could there be other motives behind this other than the arsenic claim.....sure. Like they said, arsenic's naturally occurring and we consume small amounts of it almost every day. This might just be this metal buyers scapegoat.

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

Your wrong, the DRUM has nothing on it, the developer on old copiers does, back in the days when copiers required liquid developer, also plate makers for presses obviously. The laser in a laser printer used to be and sometimes still is a gallium arsenide laser, which is a bonded chemical and has no bearing in leaching or in processing. Copiers with liquid developer were last made in the 80s so far as I've seen in my adventures. Nearly all laser printers I've gotten in scrap use either an c02 laser or a led laser, depending on the brand and speed of the printer.

((pulled this from an article on drum composition))

The term Organic simply indicates that the OPC Drum is coated with biodegradable materials that will not in any way cause harm to the environment. The drum’s coating is made up of petroleum substances such as carbon based chemicals. These are photoconductive polymers extracted from by products of fossil fuel refining activities. Manufactured from organic compounds, OPC Drum coatings are classified as non- hazardous and can therefore be used extensively in various printing applications, particularly that of the laser printing equipment. Earlier released photoreceptors such as the Arsenic Triselinide (As2Se3) and Selenium Tellurium (SeTe) Drums were considered hazardous.

To be even more specific, unless your scrapping 30 year old industrial xerox machines there is NO FRICKIN WAY you have arsenic in a business or consumer level laser printer. And as for inkjets, it's soy, you can drink it if that was your fancy.

Wow! Thanks for the good info. Yep, 30 years and things do change a bit.....
I first found out about selenium from figuring out what a photoresistor was as a kid, this got me the info about photocopiers.
Later on, during the early 90's I pulled a few photocopiers apart and was told about it again then.
It would have been true back then, but times have changed.

So, its been a 'ass umption' of mine that newer electronics still had selenium on the drums.
I did notice the different colours of the drums but didn't think much of it at the time.

Thank you very much for pointing this out and explaining what actually is the real facts.

Scrapmetalforum members have taught me sooooo much I could just never find out here in NZ.

It's not a problem man. I know sometimes I sound harsh, I don't mean to be except that in the background I take the time to look up the laws and regulations governing manufacturing of these things. As it happens, laser printers have been using organic drums since... 1988 or so. Laser printers only started coming out in the late 80s anyways, but really were talking about copiers, which is different.

This bit of humor brought to you by the letters H-U-G I-T O-U-T.

You may now return to your debate.

Sirscrapalot - Insomnia...it effects everyone.

Hey I get to go see VA again because I'm not sleeping, let's all say YAY to the government. If it's like last visit I'll get a diagnosis that I am not sleeping in a year and why I am not in three.

Originally Posted by mthomasdev

That state is F*****g NUTS. Bought a receiver for a trailer hitch over the weekend. There was a sticker on it that said that it contained material known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, etc..

Ya that sticker is in a lot of places here in California: Starbucks, Ross, lots of retail stores. Most people just ignore it because it, it is everywhere. It came about from a Proposition that was passed awhile back.

I am guessing arsenic is code for "to much fluff in the shred pile that we tracked to these printers and faxes". I would bet they are using arsenic because most people are uninformed and not willing to research it and it sounds just scary enough to fool the masses. Big bad boogie man when the real reason is their downstream guy is sick and tired of paying for plastic and glass in the shred. Regardless......it's now the law of the land at New's yard and that is the way it is. I would bet a person rolls in with 2000 pounds of plastic free printers, the arsenic excuse goes away.

Electronic circuit boards, relays, and switches may contain arsenic

I used to tell my students that I believed all organic compounds (ok arsenic is inorganic but you get my point that I'm talking about various chemicals, either in their pure form or in compounds) given in the right amount or duration will cause cancer. Most organic compounds have only been around a few hundred years except EtOH and a few others so people just haven't had much time to get used to them. Some organic compounds don't take either much amount or much time to get ya, others much more moderate but set up the right exposure conditions, and they're all probably all bad for you. You try to be smart and limit exposure to the most nasty ones but they're everywhere in our modern society. Sooner or later most Americans die from this list: some sort of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or renal failure. Like spinroch said, how you choose your total exposure to the environment probably makes a difference in the length and quality of your life but we will all breath our last someday...