When Scott Electric started recycling electrical materials five years ago, the company shipped about six tractor-trailer loads a year to its recycler, including a few computers.
Now, the South Greensburg company sends out a tractor-trailer of recyclables once a week, and discarded computers increasingly make up more of the load, according to Dick Smith, industrial sales manager.
"It just keeps growing," Smith said.
The lightning speed of advancing technology, combined with plummeting prices, makes the disposal of outdated and unwanted computers from homes and businesses an increasing problem and has spawned a niche industry.
Environmental risk
As the use of computers in homes and in businesses rapidly expanded in the 1990s, environmentalists began to worry about what would happen to the equipment as it became outdated.
A 1997 Carnegie Mellon University study projected that 150 million computers would be recycled by 2005. Only six years before, another study predicted that same number of computers would be sent to landfills. Yet, the 1997 study estimated that 55 million would be sent to landfills by 2005, which still poses an environmental problem.
Recycling appears to be the answer.
"Definitely, it's a growing problem due to the rapidly advancing technology," said Charlie Young, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Most waste companies won't accept computers because of the hazardous materials they contain, according to Frank Corleto Jr., Scott's recycling coordinator. A typical computer monitor contains 4 to 7 pounds of lead and, overall, components can contain other hazardous materials such as mercury, silver, chromium and cadmium, according to the DEP.
There is no federal or Pennsylvania law that mandates computer recycling. However, there are laws, such as the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, that regulate the disposal of hazardous wastes found in computers.
"As a business, you definitely have to be doing the right thing," Corleto said. "A lot of people just don't know what to do."
Businesses and schools do not want any liability if they send computers to a landfill. Nearby groundwater could become contaminated, and the pollutants could be traced to the discarded computers.
"What can you do with 17 pallets of computers?" Corleto said, referring to a load Scott recently picked up from a local school district. "You can't throw them in a landfill."
Information security
The disposal of hazardous materials is not the only issue facing computer recyclers. The possibility of compromising confidential personal information left on discarded hard drives is a concern.
"Twelve years ago, you were not going to find any patient information on a PC, it was all on a mainframe," said Jim Vellella, who directs the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's program to update its computer technology.
But that changed with the advent of more personal computer-based systems on local area networks and an expanding need for Internet access.
"Typically ... what they would do is reformat the hard drive and give it to Goodwill," Vellella said. "They went to charitable organizations, they went to Third World countries. ... Based on the best available technology at the time, we made sure that information was not available."
But reformatting hard drives is no longer a guarantee for eliminating information from outdated or unwanted computers.
"The magnetic signature of the old format is still there, so that if you have the right software, that data is still recoverable," said Eric Vorhees, security data manager of Amandi Services, a computer recycling firm based in Hallstead, Susquehanna County.
He said the way to get rid of information on a hard drive is to run a program that overwrites the information, replacing it with meaningless numbers.
Rita Palmer, vice president of Amandi, said that is part of the package when Amandi recycles computers.
"You have to make sure that you are dealing with a reputable, proper organization that is dealing with the information appropriately," she said. "If requested, we supply a certificate of destruction."
The passage of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act, which was designed to protect the confidentiality of medical records, made the destruction of data on obsolete or discarded computer hard drives more compelling.
"When HIPAA came in, it became at least a more visible thing for people to come in here and offer data disposal services," Vellella said. "They saw us as an untapped market."
Niche industry
Palmer agreed that environmental hazards, combined with the issue of customer security, have fueled the growth.
"Both have really fed this (recycling) industry," Palmer said. "We live in a throwaway society. Stuff is being built cheaper and it doesn't hold up, and technology, for a while, it just soared.
"Plus, you have organizations that are pushing recycling, trying to make sure that the environment is being taken care of."
Smith said recycling was started as a service to its customers, and company officials view it as a way to attract new patrons who will remember Scott when they need to buy electrical supplies. While the company does not view it as a for-profit activity, Corleto concedes that it is not losing money on recycling.
Smith said anyone, including home computer owners, can bring old equipment to Scott for recycling.
Some computer manufacturers have pitched in to recycle computers. Dell, Apple and Gateway offer to take customers' old computers when they buy new ones.
The service will be a growth industry as more states follow the lead of California and Washington and pass laws requiring it.
"We were actually told that we could just throw them away, but it was obvious to us that is not the right thing to do, which is why we looked for a recycling program," said Chris Sherman, microcomputing and help desk manager for Seton Hill University in Greensburg. He said the university disposes of about 60 computers per year.
"The pile we are getting rid of now has been piling up for years, and now we've finally found a recycling program," Sherman said.
The university is under contract with Scott and is charged for the service based on the weight of the materials being disposed. Smith said the ballpark estimate for recycling is about $5 per computer.
"The plastic goes through a shredder, the hard drives are melted down, the glass gets melted down into little balls," Smith said.
"Everything is completely reused," Corleto said.
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