The MacDocs Blog

The year 2001 was interesting to say the least. Beside the devastating experience we shared in the national collective we had a MacDocs disaster. The shop we occupied was burned down as a result of some questionable activity in an adjoining office space. The pain of rebirth landed us in our current space for the last decade.

One of the first things we noticed is that people started abandoning computers and related equipment. At that point in time I made a quick phone call to the city landfill the conversation went something like this.

“Hi I run a computer shop and I have a question.”

“Ok, what can I do for you?” replied the sing song female voice at the other end.

“We are receiving items in our shop that people are wanting to get rid of, and we need to know how to properly dispose of such items.”

“Do you have a dumpster?” She asked.

“Well, we do but I know there are all sorts of nasty things in computers. Components and the like I would rather not just toss in the garbage.” I protested.

“Currently we don’t have a proper method to dispose of that type of refuse.”

Now what? Well it took a few years, but we finally found a company who “disposed” of these items properly. The down side of this new proper disposal was that it would cost us significantly more than simply lofting things in to the dumpster. But we felt it was well worth the additional cost to “do the right thing.”

The recycle company charges us by weight. To that end we have devised a basic charge for certain types of equipment that we accept for recycling. Using this method it is pretty much a break even proposition for us. We will recycle a “like for like” computer for free when some one purchases a new computer.

We have a storage area within our shop that fills up over time and about every three months or so we call for a pickup. The truck pulls up, the driver loads all the stuff, gives us a receipt and drives away. But where does it go from there?

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to visit the facility and chat with the manager about exactly how and what they do. I had initially asked if they would allow me to bring a video camera and do a video blog. I was really excited to video the huge jaws munching and crunching hard drives and data storage devices. But alas, they turned down my request for taping siting privacy and corporate trade secrets. I did the next best thing. I searched the internet for the video and found a different company who had posted what I saw, here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvCSIkCZHc. I would like to see some one try to reconstruct data from that beast.

Here is some of what I learned. Since my initial chat with the folks at the landfill the rules and laws regarding the disposal of computer equipment have changed. In fact if you are caught tossing such things, specifically as a business you could be fined. Lucky for us we are several years ahead of the curve. But for everyone else it is something to keep in mind.

Much of the actual disassembly of the electronic equipment is accomplished by hand. With screw drivers, hammers and a slew of other tools the computers and such are stripped to unique components and physically separated into bins.

The bins are then rolled to different areas of the warehouse to be dealt with more appropriately. For example, all the hard drives, CD-DVD’s, yes and even a few old floppies, Zips etc, get rolled over to the jaws of death, remember the video?

There are some things that are worth a small amount of money. There are a variety of precious metals that can be taken out and returned to their component state to be reused elsewhere. When I was a younger man I really didn’t get it. Shouldn’t a recycler be paying me to take my junk? The reality is that it is so costly to get the valuable stuff out that it would be a negative business venture if they paid for the old stuff.

The plastics caught my eye as we wandered from area to area. The “Apple” stuff is pretty easy to see, especially the bright colors from the late nineties and early two thousands. The odd thing about “Apple” plastics, I was told, is that they are different than others. Apparently they are more difficult to break down because they are “tougher” than other stuff so they are bundled by themselves when enough has been gathered.

The overwhelming majority of bundles then end up in rail cars to be sent all over the US. California kept coming up as one location that many things are sent for further “deconstruction.”

It’s nice to know that this stuff won’t simply end up in a land fill some where. It’s one of those things we do to make certain we are part of a bigger solution rather than making an existing problem worse.

As I left the warehouse and went through the office waiting area I noticed a little computer with a nine inch screen. I was taken back in time some twenty years to the days of the MacPlus.

“Why are you hanging on to that little animal?” I asked.

“Because some day it will be a collector’s item.” He answered.

I smiled thinking of transparent aluminum.

written by Russ