Trying to be efficient

I am at work searching the forum and pondering ways to be more efficient. Has anyone ever crushed or smashed ewaste (in particular motherboards) before shipping it off? Some of the stuff is rather bulky and when packed there is still a lot of dead air. The only issues I can think of are the labor involved and the buyer not exactly knowing what they are getting. Any ideas or is this not at all feasible?

It releases small amounts of poison dust when you go messing with a circuit board. Best to keep em' whole and undisturbed.

Originally Posted by robaz

I am at work searching the forum and pondering ways to be more efficient. Has anyone ever crushed or smashed ewaste (in particular motherboards) before shipping it off? Some of the stuff is rather bulky and when packed there is still a lot of dead air. The only issues I can think of are the labor involved and the buyer not exactly knowing what they are getting. Any ideas or is this not at all feasible?

I've seen this done at one of the bigger companies. Actually went thru a shredder and screen. Thier goal was to get more in a gay lord and remove the steel, aluminum, tranformers, etc before shipping to a refiner.

All good answers, and the bottom line is that it it probably not worth your time to do it and (as you said) the buyer may not be able to determine exactly what it is. Typically when a buyer is in doubt they pay the least amount to cover the unknowns. Use tski advise and find creative ways to pack tighter and get a better payout in the end.

Thanks, all good points.

Originally Posted by mthomasdev

I've seen this done at one of the bigger companies. Actually went thru a shredder and screen. Thier goal was to get more in a gay lord and remove the steel, aluminum, tranformers, etc before shipping to a refiner.

I hope it was done in a closed system. That could be really bad for the people working there every day. Didn't want to get into a complicated discussion about the hazards of e-waste but i found a pretty straightforward report that was done back in 2001. It gives a basic idea of what kind of poisons someone might be running into when dealing with printed circuit boards.

https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/18701...zardousMat.pdf

Closer to home: We had a really good guy here on the board a few years back that was fascinated with all of the little bits & pieces that are found on a PCB. He especially liked the tanty caps & smd's and would break down the boards for them.

Time wore on and he eventually started developing health problems. The doctors and their tests confirmed that he had lead poisoning. He thought it might be from the drinking water but if that were the case his whole family would have taken ill. It's a lot more likely that it came from the work that he was doing with the circuit boards.

He hasn't posted here in awhile.

IMHO .. the best advise anyone could ever give would be for the scrappers to voluntarily limit themselves to dismantling and let the refiners deal with the hazards of breaking up the boards for metals recovery. It's a tricky business and it's the thing that you don't know that can cause you harm.

Speaking of shipping I just go and buy a large box from Walmart, don't remember if its 12x12x24 or 18x18x24 but I got the cheapest quote from E-Wasted ever. It was 69 Lbs. and it cost me $48.06 that's .69 per pound. 33 pounds of that was mother boards. I had a lot of room to spare too.