The E-recycling process involves the recycling of some delicate objects. There are several steps followed during the recycling process to ensure that everything is extracted safely. E-recycling companies use both manual labour and automation in the process. Here is the complete process used to recycle electronics products.
Collection and Transportation
Recycling cannot take place without the materials being recycled. Recycling companies place electronic take back booths and collection bins in different locations for people to dispose of their spoilt e-waste. These bins are later collected and taken to the recycling plant for recycling. This task is often assigned to e-waste management collectors.
Manual Sorting
Components that should not be crushed or shredded, such as batteries, toner cartridges, fluorescent lights, and UPS battery systems are picked out by hand at this stage.
Shredding
This is the process through which devices are broken down into smaller pieces for separation to take place. The initial shredding step reduces devices into 100 mm size pieces. The secondary size reduction process breaks the materials into even smaller pieces. The smaller the devices, the easier the separation process will be. This process leads to the production of a lot of dust, which is disposed of through environmentally friendly disposal methods.
Magnetic Removal
This is a process where a magnet is used to remove all the magnetic materials. Iron and steel are the targeted materials in this process.
Non-metallic and metallic separation
This is the step that involves the separation of metallic materials such as brass, copper, and aluminum from non-metallic objects such as plastic and glass. Separation of these materials is done through optical identification, magnets, and Eddy currents.
Separation by Water
This recycling step involves the separation of glass and plastic. They are separated using water. Plastics are then separated according to their colour.
Preparation for Sale
After all of those processes have been executed successfully, the materials are packed for sale as raw materials.