ELECTRONICS SHREDDING PROCESS

CompuCycle is Houston’s first electronics recycler to secure R2 certification, the industry’s leading certificate of destruction granted by Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI). And now we’re proud to be the first and only processor with a sophisticated, fully automated electronics shredding and separation system.

Our facility enables us to keep 100% of shredded electronics equipment out of landfills. You can now have the peace of mind that CompuCycle is the end processor of your IT assets, keeping your company’s data secure.

Our drive shredding system consists of two 4-shaft shredders, eddy current separation, and optical sorters. This state-of-the-art electronics disposition and separation system can shred up to 40,000 pounds of electronics per shift. It’s also equipped with specialized components that separate the steel, aluminium, copper, plastics, and circuit boards that can then be reused.

Here’s how it works: We load recyclable components onto the conveyor belt in bulk and start the machine. The components first travel to the primary shredder, where the steel is separated. As the shredder crunches through the equipment, steel pieces fall through the container’s bottom to a conveyor system, where they are then automatically taken to the next separation area.

As the remaining shredded components travel up the first conveyor belt, magnets separate the ferrous metals, and copper pieces are extracted manually. As the shredded components travel up the second conveyor belt, they pass through a second shredder and a second magnet pulls out any remaining ferrous materials.

At this point, with only non-ferrous materials, circuit boards, and plastics left, the e-scrap passes through a shaker table that separates small fragments of plastics, non-ferrous metals, and circuit boards. Then, the load travels through an eddy current that removes copper and aluminium pieces. Finally, the pieces pass through an optical sorter that separates the circuit boards and plastics.

The following video depicts a near replica shredding and sorting machine (also made by SSI Shredding Systems) hard at work:

When you take unwanted electronics to a typical recycler, the full recycling process is not done on the premises because the company does not have the on-site capability to recycle and shred devices down into raw materials. Thus, they have to send the e-scrap to a third party downstream that you have no control over or possibly even knowledge of who they are.

CompuCycle is different. We are the only Houston company equipped to process e-waste into raw materials that can then be reused. This means that when customers need to dispose of IT assets, we have three ways we can keep the items–and their often toxic components–out of landfills. We can:

• Refurbish electronics for reuse as a complete unit after sanitizing all data with software.

• Harvest individual electronic components such as computers hard drives, motherboards, etc., or

• Shred the items into raw materials that can be reused, thus preventing additional excavation from the earth or complex manufacturing processes.

In other words, electronics you entrust us with don’t leave our site until any data contained on them is rendered completely unrecoverable, one way or another. Other e-waste recyclers can’t guarantee the sanctity of your information to that extent. This makes up just one part of our vigilant chain of custody, which protects your equipment at each stage of the ITAD process.

In addition to helping customers satisfy their data destruction obligations, we partner with you to achieve your sustainability goals and meet any environmental regulations governing your industry. Recycling electronic items instead of throwing them away are rapidly becoming a legal requirement in most areas. We are thrilled to provide these all-encompassing shredding services as a green solution to our ever-growing network of customers.