My yard doesn't buy ewaste either, but it does buy steel, wire, aluminum, copper bearing motors, etc. So your job is to simply deconstruct the ewaste. Like others said, open something up and tear it apart. You can't hurt anything. It's garbage otherwise destined for the dump. You need tools, a workspace, and containers to separate your components.
If you have a lot of resources and high volume buyers, you can maximize your profit through the volume of waste. If you have limited resources, you can maximize your income through more careful breakdown. Your labor costs are going to be higher the more you handle each piece. Only you can determine what your labor is worth. I am small time, so I break down nearly everything to maximize return per item at the expense of my labor costs. I am only now reaching the point where the flow of material is increasing and may force a change in this approach.
The more hands on you are early on the more you can determine where the "meat" is. I still strip the boards of most of the components I consider sellable, including soldered medium sized ICs and eproms. I am pretty thorough about what I take off, but do not have any problem with throwing the stripped boards in the shred since there is still a fair amount of copper and brass that is simply not economical to remove by hand. The boards are not "naked" fiber, but stripped of what I can reasonably access and sell. To help determine what you strip off the boards, find out what the market is for the various components. Some you can sell locally, others you have to ship.
I don't get paid for plastics. Most of it goes to the local recycling center, some ends up in the trash. You have to assess your own economics of waste disposal to include time, fuel, and utilization of space.
You'll figure a lot out by just working through it. Good luck.
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