Environmental sustainability is the concept that we must find a way to make our nonrenewable natural resources last for future generations. In order to accomplish this we must become very efficient with our materials recycling effort. Recycling is good, but efficient recycling gets us closer to sustainability. An interesting case in point is that if we were able to recycle all of the aluminum products present in the world today we would never need to mine bauxite ore again.
How are shredded hard drives presently recycled? 96% of the weight of a hard drive is metal. 60% of that weight is aluminum. Aluminum is the most valuable metal found in a hard drive. Stainless steel is roughly equivalent in value but constitutes a much smaller portion of the weight. The most cost efficient method of recycling a shredded hard drive is to send the shredded hard drive to an aluminum recycling facility where the aluminum is melted leaving the ferrous and stainless steel as dross. The dross may or may not be sent for additional recycling. All other material such as circuit boards and plastics are burned off in the process. The net recovery value of this shredded hard drive recycling approach is approximately 50% of the weight of a hard drive. This is not a very inefficient recycling method when considering sustainability of a hard drive. This is what occurs when shredded hard drive material is dropped off at a local metals recycling yard.
A more costly but more efficient, from a sustainability stand point, method of recycling a shredded hard drive is to physically separate the metals and circuit boards prior to recycling. This capability requires an investment in sophisticated materials sorting systems and is generally found in only the largest electronic recycling facilities. These sorting systems are designed to deal with a broad range of electronic materials and require large volumes of material to be processed in order to justify the capital investment. The efficiency of this method is in the range of 80% recovery of the shredded hard drive material. This is what typically happens when the shredded hard drive material is sent to a large electronic recycling facility.
Keep in mind two facts. One: There are a lot more metal recycling yards around the country than large electronic recycling facilities so from a convenience and cost of transport stand point shredded hard drives are a lot more likely to wind up at a metal recycling yard. Two: Shredding hard drives does not generate a large amount of recyclable material in weight. Recycling facilities work in tons as a basis of measurement. Thus small quantities of hard drives do not represent enough value in recoverable material to justify investing in materials sorting technology.
Back Thru The Future is unique in that we specialize in the secure destruction of data storage devices and data media but we are also an electronic recycling facility. We have been shredding hard drives for over seven years and have over 1000 clients. Over this seven years of recycling shredded hard drive material we have developed a proprietary and highly efficient materials sorting system specifically designed to sort hard drive materials. This system allows us to recapture approximately 97% of the materials used in the manufacturing of a hard drive. We believe that we have come as close to making a hard drive an environmentally sustainable product as anyone in the world.
If you’d like to see what the exact materials breakdown of a hard drive is, please use our contact form and request a materials breakdown sheet.
The post What’s the Difference Between Hard Drive Recycling and Hard Drive Sustainability? appeared first on Hard Drive Shredding.
