Green Telecom: How Telecommunications Service Providers Get Green & the Dirty Little Secret about Recycling Technology
Competition is fierce among telecommunication service providers. One factor customers and prospects use in making the decision which company to use is environmental-friendliness and sustainability. For this article, we examine end-of-life electronic asset recycling as it relates to Green Telecom.
Telcos consistently upgrade technology in their networks. This creates a problem. With literally tons of legacy equipment being displaced annually that has no re-use demand, what is the right thing to do with these end-of-useful-life electronics?
The problem is international in scope and most other countries have passed or are passing legislation about how to deal with it. Europe has created the strongest laws with the passing of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive, which makes the manufacturers of the equipment responsible for recycling the equipment at the end of its life. They have also conducted the most research and development to create technology for recycling the materials.
The machinery previously thought to be the most advanced for electronic recycling was created by European companies which are closed loop systems consisting of conveyors, shredders, separators, eddy current systems, grinders, crushers and anti-static plastic separators enclosed within an air-filtered system delivering three streams of materials – granulized plastics, ferrous and non-ferrous. The theory was that the plastic stream would be used in plastic mold injection manufacturing, the ferrous would go to steel buyers for manufacturing and the non-ferrous (copper, aluminum, gold, platinum, palladium, etc.) smelted for recovery.
The dirty little secret that the owners and manufacturers of these systems don’t want known is that they lose 20% to 30% of the base, precious and semi-precious metals in their process, and the plastics can’t be used for its intended purpose. These were the findings of a study conducted by the University of Berlin last year. In essence, this recycling machinery is simply very expensive, yet impressive looking and energy draining marketing paraphernalia.
The loss comes from the shredding, grinding and crushing of the materials. Steel gets imbedded in the plastics, gold gets enmeshed in the steel, plastic get mixed into the non-ferrous – it’s a mess. Per the study, the majority of the work must be conducted using human labor; human labor to de-manufacture the materials down to the commodity level so that there is no commodity material loss and the plastic can be used in manufacturing.
At Associated Tele-Networking, Inc. (ATNI), we find equipment schematics, conduct time/motion studies and use this information to create standard operating procedures and processes which require the least amount of labor while producing maximum outputs of uncontaminated commodities. This has been a pain-staking progression, but has paid off in dividends to our clients and us. With large volumes, insatiable buyers and high commodity prices, ATNI has been able to attain top-dollar for our clients’ materials.
By far, the “greenest” method of recycling is to re-use end-of-life electronics. ATNI has a complete sales and marketing department focused solely on materials that fit this category. When they don’t, following ATNI’s process enables telcos to justifiably be considered environmentally-friendly and sustainable for this part of their businesses. Contact us at info@atni.us to learn more.