RECYCLING

"Printed Circuit Boards contain heavy metals such as antimony, silver, chromium, zinc, lead, tin and copper. According to some estimates there is hardly any other product for which the sum of the environmental impacts of raw material, extraction, industrial, refining and production, use and disposal is so extensive as for printed circuit boards."

CARE conference, Vienna, 1994

Computers, printers, monitors, batteries, faxes and photocopiers generate all sorts of electronic waste. Most waste contains high levels of toxins which are damaging to our environment. At the same time some electronic wastes have valuable resources that are recoverable and reusable. In some cases it takes less energy to recycle these materials than it takes to produce.

Printers

The unused toner in the cartridges in printers often contain toxin that is very damaging to our environment. It is reported that the US recycle around 30% of cartridges. That doesn’t sound like much does it? Then you may be surprised - as we were - to learn that here in Australia we recycle a mere 15%.

Australia imports around 7 million cartridges per year. We throw away up to 1.2 million ink jet cartridges and 250000 laser cartridges per month!

Monitors

Monitors containing cathode ray tubes have high levels of lead. This has been used to make radiation shields on the monitors, however lead can be very dangerous and can spread into landfills. Recycling these tubes is the answer to this problem.

The solution

Increasingly businesses are updating their technical assets regularly due to technical advances in the computer world.

But... what happens to the old equipment?

ITSD ensures that disposed assets are recycled or disposed of in an environmentally safe manner every time. ITSD works closely with contractors who are AS/NZSIS14001:2004 approved.