Reuse and Recycling through 2005
This page contains materials that shows how much electronic scrap (i.e. e-scrap) we've recycled throughout the years, as well as approximately how many systems, monitors, and printers we've reused and recycled in sum.
E-Scrap Recovery Rates
Click on the chart to make it larger.
The raw data from the chart (numbers are in tons):
| Year | Mixed | Monitors | Steel | Copper- Bearing |
Plastic | Gold- Bearing |
Other Non-Ferrous |
Total Tonnage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 2.22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.22 |
| 2001 | 59.92 | 11.13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.74 | 0 | 73.79 |
| 2002 | 20.68 | 32.78 | 24.45 | 6.86 | 2.14 | 2.78 | 0 | 89.69 |
| 2003 | 40.31 | 22.50 | 40.33 | 19.44 | 8.92 | 6.66 | 0.68 | 138.84 |
| 2004 | 41.70 | 38.02 | 74.65 | 46.14 | 11.70 | 11.56 | 2.20 | 225.97 |
| 2005 | 46.20 | 126.90 | 140.30 | 71.70 | 16.60 | 13.80 | 2.20 | 417.70 |
Some clarifications about what comprises the items in some of the above categories:
- Mixed
- printers, keyboards, and otherwise whole components that are ground up to recover materials such as steel, plastic, etc. In the early days of 2000 and 2001 we used to huck whole computers into a box for recycling, starting in 2002 we began to break everything we could down into the materials listed below.
- Copper-Bearing Material
- an item from which we can salvage some copper, generally from a small motor or wiring buried in its workings. Mice, stereos, telephones, and miscellaneous adapters go in this category.
- Gold-Bearing Material
- processors, memory, and circuit boards are included in this category.
Some fun, additional stats for you:
- Over the life of the organization through 2005, Free Geek recycled, or "recovered", 948.21 tons of e-scrap.
- In the year 2005, Free Geek recycled about the same amount of steel as it had recycled during all of the previous 4 years combined.
- At the end of 2005, Free Geek was recycling over 35 tons per month through its facility.
Overall Rates of Reuse and Recycling
Click on the chart to the right to enlarge it.
Here's the raw data from the chart:
| Year | Gizmos Reused |
Gizmos Recycled |
Gizmos Received |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systems | 7,029 | 25,582 | 17,069 | 49,680 |
| Monitors | 6,998 | 19,625 | 8,408 | 35,031 |
| Printers | 3,342 | 11,471 | 8,045 | 22,858 |
It's good to note that, in theory, the "Gizmos Received" numbers should be the amounts of these items we have in storage at our facility. This hardly seems feasable, though: we just don't have this much room! More likely, the high numbers of "Gizmos Received" are probably the result of faulty tracking or mis-recorded data entry at many points throughout the life of the organization.
Please use the above numbers all ball-park figures. From them, we can say that approximately 20% of the computers, systems, and monitors we receive are reused. The rest are recycled or still on the premises at Free Geek.
- Next, Income and Expenses through 2005
- Back to the 2005 Annual Report index