What goes where
Bench Bins
Plastic
All plastic coming from computer cases, and most other electronics go into the gaylord marked plastic. They should be marked with these letters or combo of letters: HIPS, PS, ABS, HI. Check all plastic for metal clips, screws, and locks before placing plastic in this bin.
- Floppies and media( not CDs) go into the small gaylord over to the side next to the table. Floppies get taken apart and the aluminum and steel get separated. Videotapes get steel screws removed, zip disks broken apart for steel and aluminum. No metal in this bin.
- CDs get collected separately, they are a different kind of plastic, and are actually somewhat valuable.
Ribbon Wire
- Vendor: Metro Metals
- just ribbon wire
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.
Copper Bearing Material
Here is where power supplies, floppy drives, stereos, and other CBM comes to rest. Copper Bearing Material is sort of an electronic catchall bin. Stereo equipment, VCRs, telephones, speakers, mice, 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. Anything that is suspected of having batteries (wireless mice) or nice mid-grade circuit boards (optical drives, zip drives, and network devices) should be set aside for further deconstruction. Please no wood, batteries or big pieces of glass in here.
Power supplies
- Vendor: Metro Metals
- go in to CBM after wire is cut off
Printed Circuit Board Medium
Only trained Advanced Recyclers should be putting stuff in here, because placing things here is tricky, boards must be checked before going in. A motherboard must have the processor and battery removed before placing it in the bin. Also, some bigger pieces af aluminum(heatsinks) should get removed. A daughter board must have the steel faceplate removed. These boards are referred to as medium density boards.
Printed Circuit Board Low
This is a new category for us. Only trained Advanced Recyclers should be putting stuff in here. If you're not sure if it is low or medium, set it aside, and ask Liane when you see her. To identify these boards look on both sides. If one side is brown, it is low. If it has very little circuit on it, no chips, and a bunch of resistors, it is low. If circuits are only on one side, it is low.
We also have high density boards. They are the circuitboards off the back of hard drives, and go into a barrel. We need to keep this barrel clean (no random circuitboards).
- Special Note: Clean Circuitboards
Steel
Computer case and other steel end up here. We use the red push cart to collect steel from the bench and empty it when full. 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. The stairs and 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 metal 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 and Barrels
These are gaylords on the sidewalk or on the warehouse floor that are fed mostly by receiving and you, the staff member.
Monitors
Monitors are now separated in Covered Electronic Devices(CEDs) and non-CEDs and need to be stacked in to the right gaylord. Please ask a staff member which ones go where. To be recycled monitors get placed tretris-style in the gaylords. We can leave the cords and bases intact, but it is ok to remove the base to get better stacking results. Please don't put monitors with their screens facing down, but instead stack them in a way that will keep them from sliding and breaking. No more than 3 levels of monitors are stacked on top of each other, we have to be able to close the lid completely.
Aluminum
We keep barrels on the warehouse floor, along the western wall, with the labels "clean sheet", "clean cast", "clean extruded", stainless steel. One gaylord is reserved for mixed dirty aluminum. Only a person trained in telling one kind from another should be putting aluminum in any of them. If you don't know, ask a certified advanced recycler to show you, or leave them in a box by the adv. recycling bench.
CED Laptops
Hard Drive Circuit boards
Cell Phones
Hard Drive chassis
Cardboard
Cardboard gets flattened and put outside in to the cardboard dumpster. If it seems full, climb in (at your own risk), and stomp it down.
Paper
Books, manuals, and the like go in the blue recycling cans that are to the east of the warehouse door. Separate out all software, plastic wrap and wire bound manuals and put only paper plastic bottles 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 Thursday, the cans need to be brought out near the curb next to the steel bin.
Old, Outdated, Interesting Warehouse Floor Plan
Legend:
P = Pallets AL = Aluminium
() = Barrel GBM = Circuit boards medium
LTB = Laptops Bottoms
GBML = Circuit Board Low
PL = Plastics
MON = Monitors For Recycle PS = Power Supplies
W = Wire
CR = Cords
RW = Ribbon Cable
CBM = Copper Bearing Material
B = Batteries
HC = Hard Drive Circuit boards
SS = Stainless Steel
UPS = Ups
HD = Hard Drives Bodies
__________________________________________
| ____ ____ ____ ____ |
||LS | | | |HD ||AL | (SS) (AL) |
||____| | T | |____||____| (AL) (AL)||
| ____ __ | R | |GBML| (HC) (AL) |
||pallets | | |____| ||
||______ | ___| ____ ||
| | B | |
/ | E | |
/ ____ | A | |
| |P | | R | |
| |____| |____| |
| |_
______________________________________|
| _____________________________________
|| Total Reclaim |
||_____________________________________|
| _____________________________________
|| Total Reclaim |
||_____________________________________|
| _____________________________________ _
|| Bear | |
||_____________________________________| |
| _____________________________________ |
|| Bear | __ ____ ___ |
||_____________________________________| |__| |P || | |
| ____________________________ ____ |____|| D | |
||MONITOR TESTING STATION | |LTB | ____ | e | |
|| _________________________| |____| |PL || c | |
||__| |____|| o | |
\ ____ | n | |
\ ____ ____ ____ |CBM || s | |
| | | | | | | _________ |____|| t | |
| __ |MON_| |Mon_| |CR__| | Table | ____ | r | |
|| | ____ ____ ____ ____ |_________| |RW || u | |
|| | | | | | | | | | |____|| c | |
|| | | | | | | | | | _________ ____ | t | |
|| | | | | | | | | ||Sit down | |W || i | |
|| | | | | | | | | ||___T_____| |____|| o | |
|| | | | | | | | | | ____ | n | |
|| | | | | | | | | | |PS || | |
|| | | | | | | | | | ___ ___ |____||___| |
|| | | | | | | | | || ||PL | |
|| | | | | | | | | ||___||___| |
|| | | | | | | | | ||GBM||UPS| ______________|
|| | | | | | | | | ||___||___| | | |
|| | | | | | | | | | ________ | |---------- |
|| | | | | | | | | ||Adv.R | | |Recycling| |
|| | |____| |____| |____| |____||________| office | |
|| | _________________________ ____|
|| | | | | | |PS |
|| | |_________________________| |_|________|___ |
|| | |
|| | |
||__| |
|__________________________________________________________________________________|