Recycling

COVERING RECYCLING ON A DAILY BASIS

So jhasen is sick, or laid off, or dead and now YOU are responsible for one third of Free Geek's income. Oh Crap. This is an attempt to help you keep this area running smoothly.

Volunteers - The tend to show up at 11 and again at 3, though walk ins and odd shifts exist on a daily basis. You need to get them started, after a brief explanation of where things go, they can work (for the most part) with little supervision. Moving clockwise, get them acquainted with the bins.

Ribbon Cable - Home for all flat IDE and scuzzy type cables. On occasion they will be attached to a steel faceplate held on by nuts. The nut driver should be used to remove the faceplate so that the ribbon cable can be placed in the bin.

Plastic - Check all plastic for metal clips, screws, and locks before placing plastic in this bin.

Colored wire - This is where the multicolored wire clipped from the power supply goes. This wire is sorted for it's light insulation to coper ratio, not for its color, so remember that black, white, and gray are also colors. All "skinny" wire goes here.

Heavy Insulated Wire - Thick heavy cords like those found on keyboards, mice, power cords, and the like go in here. This is the place for cords that are thickly insulated, way more plastic than wire.

Motor Bin - Here is where CDROM drives, *Floppy drives, and power supplies come to rest. Power supplies include "wall warts" as well as the ones found inside computers. In either case, the procedure is the same. Clip the wires off of the power supply and put that wire into the colored wire bin. Place the unopened power supply in the motor bin.

Printed Circuit Board - Placing things here is tricky, things must be checked before going in. A motherboard must have the processor and battery removed before placing it in the bin. A daughter board must have the steel faceplate removed and should have the gold contacts or fingers cut off before coming to rest in the Circuit board bin. If it does not, place it in daughterboard pre-op, or remove the faceplate and cut the fingers off.

Steel - Computer Case steel goes here. This is the white postal tub that is armored with aluminum plates. Very Mad Max. This cart has wheels, but it is designed to roll on smooth, clean, unobstructed cement. It is important to note that the recycling floor and the parking lot outside are none of these things. When this bin becomes full, it needs to be rolled outside and tossed by hand into the forty yard drop box in the parking lot. Gloves are recommended as the inside edges of case steel is usually unfinished and brutally sharp. If today is Friday or Saturday, you will need to make it clear to all volunteers to fill the back of the bin as the front will almost certainly be full at this point in the week. There are wooden stairs that you can safely climb to check the level of this bin or add things to it. If the Mad Max cart is too full, and it will get this way often without supervision, it is highly recommended that you empty it by hand from where it sits until the level of steel is low enough to allow it to be rolled outside safely.

Daughter Board pre-op - All ISA PCI AGP and the like, type daughter boards that come to recycling are to start off here. People coming from testing, card and motherboard sorting, or build with boxes full of these things are to be told to put them here. There is a workstation of sorts here and that task will be outlined further down.

Small Steel - This is the red recycling tub on the floor in the middle isle. Small steel pieces such as the faceplates from daughter boards and numerous other forms are easier to dump into the bin than standing on your head in the mad max cart to gather a thousand little pieces and throw handfuls of them into the air.

Stainless steel - Inside of computers, one runs across a lot of shiny thin metal. Some of it is stainless steel, most of it is just steel. A cardboard box is there to sort the stainless into. Only a magnet knows for sure. Magnets are affixed to the waist height edge of the workbench in several places. If the shiny metal is held to the magnet after you let go, it is steel, it should be placed in the Mad Max cart or the small steel, depending on it's size. If it slides off the magnet or will barely stick at all, it is stainless and should be put in the box.

Aluminum - A gray plastic tub sits atop cardboard barrel. This is the place for aluminum which is mostly encountered as heat sinks from on top of processors. Aluminum can be identified with a magnet, it is metal that will not stick at all. This qualification may confuse it with stainless, but aluminum is rarely used as thin or shiny, it is usually colored and thick. Quite often there will be some kind of steel apparatus to hold a heat sink to a motherboard, this should be removed and placed in small steel. Fans are also embedded in heat sinks and should be removed and placed with the fans.

Fans - This cardboard barrel is for any fans that are found inside the computers. It is not necessary nor is it recommended that volunteers open up power supplies to remove those fans.

Speakers - Most computers have a naked speaker inside of them, this cardboard barrel is where they go.

Hard Drives - This cardboard barrel is for the hard drives that are frequently mistaken for floppy drives. You should point out the obvious difference between them being that hard drives have no door to allow things to be put inside. You may need to explain this many times if hard drives keep showing up in the motor bin. Floppy drives should be removed from this barrel and placed in the motor bin while or before emptying this barrel into the gaylord of hard drives out on the warehouse floor.

The Bench - Almost every tool needed to de-manufacture a computer and many that are not can be found scattered the length of the bench. Power screwdrivers are hardwired to the bench with fixed Phillips head bits. Screws have many containers that collect them as well as batteries. Gloves can be found on the shelves below and at the end of the bench closest to the Mad Max cart is a first aid kit. Tell the volunteers that if they run across something you didn't cover, run into a problem or forget where stuff goes, just set it aside and ask you the next time they see you, and then make sure they see you often enough for this to work. If you also cannot deal with it, place it in a box for someone to deal with later.

Now the volunteers are equipped with enough knowledge to get going. If there are seasoned veterans at the bench, they will be a big help in getting the new ones going. You should check back frequently at first until you and the recycler are confident that things are going smoothly.

WHAT NOW?

Make sure that the folks that are testing monitors are consolidating space on monitor mountain. Left unchecked, the monitors will spread like a stain across the warehouse floor. Try and keep them from being stacked in front of the gaylords as they will be leaving someday soon. If you have the volunteer power and are sure we have pallets and gaylords to support it, initiate a game of monitor tetris (to be outlined elsewhere). Do realize that sometimes things are just super out of control with the monitors, and do the best you can to keep the isles to the black hole and from the roll up door to the gaylords clear.

As gaylords become full, they will have to be switched out for new ones. Use the pallet jack to move the full bin over to the rows of gaylords waiting to leave. Sweep out the empty space if it needs it and place a pallet on the floor with the slots facing out (so it can be moved when it, in turn, is full). Take a gaylord from the stack and lug it over by the pallet. Unfold it into box shape and choose an end to be the bottom. Fold the flaps inward to form the bottom and place it on the pallet. There is a right way to align the gaylord with the pallet, if it seems wide and shallow, you have it on wrong.

Warehouse bins - These are gaylords on the warehouse floor that are fed mostly by receiving and you, the staff member.

Keyboards - Keyboards have their own gaylord, and is usually easily identifiable by the presence of keyboards. Before they can be placed in this box, the keyboards need to have the cords cut off. Wire-cutters are always available behind the recycling bench, and the severed cords are to be placed in the Heavy Insulated Wire bin.

C.B.M. - Copper Bearing Materiel is sort of an electronic catchall bin. Stereo equipment, VCRs, telephones, speakers, mice, scanners, modems, line switches, and all manner of computer adapters belong in the C.B.M. gaylord. Pretty much anything that seems like it might have copper inside of it and does not fit the criteria for the other gaylords can live in this box. Cut all wires before adding things to this bin.

Aluminum bin - The gray tub behind the bench will fill quickly, and often there will still be fans, steel, processors and things on a lot of the aluminum. We keep and aluminum bin on the warehouse floor in an attempt to keep the profits up by keeping the aluminum as pure as we can. You should hand sort the clean aluminum into the bin, keeping back the polluted aluminum that needs further attention. You can put that which needs further attention in a box and set a volunteer on cleaning it, or just set it aside. NOTE: The shiny metal posts that are on the heat sinks from the slot type processors are non ferrous and are considered clean.

Hard Drive bin - This is the gaylord where they go when the barrel is full. This barrel will be a hundred or more pounds heavy and will require two people and a dolly to bring it over to the bin. They should be hand loaded into the bin while sorting out the inevitable floppy and CDROM drives.

Cardboard - There is a wooden cage that lives on or near the forklift, this is where broken down corrugated cardboard boxes go. When it is full, find a forklift driver to empty it. This only works Tuesday thru Friday before 4:30p.m. if it is Saturday or after 4:30, then make a pile of broken down boxes somewhere nearby but out of the way.

Paper - Books, manuals, and the like go in the blue recycling cans that are over by the forklift. Separate out all software, plastic wrap and wire bound manuals and put only paper in these cans. One of these cans is for bottles and cans, but we generate far more paper than bottles and cans in a week, so both are frequently used for office paper. If it is Tuesday, the cans need to be brought out to the curb next to the northern entrance to the parking lot on the little patch of concrete.