What goes where

Ribbon Cable

Home for all flat IDE and SCSI 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 its light insulation to copper 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 are 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.

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 Material 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

Often there will still be fans, steel, processors and things on a lot of the aluminum. We keep an 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.