What Besides Gold Can You Recycle from Phones and Other Electronics?
Let’s say that you have just finished pulling the printed circuit boards out of 100 old laptops and you’ve packed the boards up and sent them to Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners to be processed. Or let’s say that you have pulled the circuit boards out of cellphones, old stereo components or even old televisions.
Now . . . what are you going to do with the rest of those devices? You could haul everything away to the dump to be recycled. That would be the environmentally responsible thing to do. But aren’t there other recyclable materials there that could put some money into your pocket, even if only a little?
Think twice before you discard or dump stuff. You could make some money by reclaiming and recycling the following materials.
Aluminum
Sure, aluminum isn’t a precious metal, but it is worth about 18 cents/pound. And computers contain a lot of the stuff. You can find it in the cases that house hard drives and other components, in heat sinks that draw heat away from motherboards, and in the frames onto which the internal components are attached.
Where do you recycle aluminum? General scrap yards will take it off your hands and pay you for it. Granted, you will have to amass a lot of the stuff to make much money from recycling it. But if you do, you’ll be doing the right thing for the environment. And if you recycle a lot of electronic devices, you could end up with more aluminum that you expect.
Copper
Copper is worth between $3.50 and $4.00/pound. And there is an awful lot of it to be reclaimed from all kinds of old devices – computers, to name just one. But just last week, a man we know pulled about three pounds of insulated copper wire out of an old dishwasher that he was about to take to the dump. Yes, it was insulated and after the insulation was burned off, there was only about 2.5 pounds of copper there. But since he was heading to a scrap metal yard anyway, he set aside the copper wire and got about $10.00 for it there. Not a fortune, but money is money, right?
Plastic
You can’t really make money by recycling plastics. At least, not enough to mention. But when you take plastics to your town’s recycling yard, you are preventing them from ending up in landfills. So that should be motivation enough to set aside the plastic bits and pieces that you reclaim from electronic devices and recycle them properly.
Thermocouples
Appliances that either heat or cool anything contain thermocouples. These can be found in air conditioners, refrigerators, space heaters, and kitchen stoves – both gas-fired and electronic. If you are recycling those devices, don’t toss away the long, silver-toned thermocouples that snake around in them. Set them aside and call us for advice on how you can reclaim their value.
Rare Earths
Rare earth metals can be recycled from the touchscreens that are found in cellphones, tablets, and laptops. So if you are pulling apart those devices and have old touchscreens left over, don’t throw them away. Call our recycling experts at 800-426-2344 and tell us what you have. They could be worth much more than you might expect.
You Can Reclaim More than Gold from Old Electronic Devices!
Do you have gold scrap, silver scrap, or platinum scrap? Give our precious metal refiners a call for more information on how to recycle them. You can reach us at 800-426-2344. We are always happy to answer all your recycling questions.