Unfortunately for our planet, our modern conveniences come with a slew of modern problems. The computers, video displays and portable electronics that make our digital age possible also make for millions of tons of waste every year, heading to a landfill near you.
Those tons of waste also contain a silver lining 鈥� and a little gold, some platinum and palladium, too. According to dosomething.org, just the old cell phones dumped in America every year contain approximately $60 million in gold and silver.
Paul Smith learned about recycling when he worked for a company in Colorado called Cartridges for Kids, which recycled used laser jet ink and toner cartridges. After the Redondo Beach, California, native met his wife Brandi and relocated to New Iberia, he found there was a niche to be filled in the local ecological food chain.
That鈥檚 how Paul the Recycle Guy came to be. What started out as a side business for the machinery operator is now one of the few recycling collectors of electronic waste in the state.
鈥淚 just had a call a little over a month ago from a company that was trying to recycle an entire warehouse full of old electronics,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淚nstead, they had to hire a rollout dumpster to haul it all to a landfill. They said they wish they had known about me a month ago.鈥�
Aside from the value of the materials used in electronics that make them worth the recycling effort, Smith said there are a lot of dangerous and toxic materials that, when dumped in landfills, end up back in the ecosystem.
鈥淵ou have the gold and silver, but you also have capacitors in the power supplies that contain mercury and other toxic materials,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what we try to keep out of the landfills.鈥�
The recycling process isn鈥檛 easy. At his home off Avery Island Road, Smith has stacks of old computers, piles of monitor stands and bins of pieces and parts, all in various stages of preparation for their trip to a recycling center.
鈥淭he monitor stands are primarily cast aluminum and steel,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淭he monitors themselves get taped face to face and loaded up for a trip to a facility in Texas.鈥�
According to Smith, there are no certified e-waste facilities in Louisiana. In fact, the trip to Texas for the monitors is a short hop compared to what is in store for old motherboards and other components.
鈥淚 strip those down and store them in barrels,鈥� he said. 鈥淥nce I get one filled to about 500 pounds worth, it gets put on a pallet and shipped to a compliant recycling facility in Ohio.鈥�
There鈥檚 something of value in each piece of the junked electronics. Sometimes it is the copper in the cabling and power cords. Other times it鈥檚 the old equipment itself.
鈥淚 picked up an old Xerox copier that had the Winter Olympics logo on it,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 called Xerox and talked to someone in their marketing department and they said they wanted it back. They were excited to hear it was still out there working.鈥�
Another find was an old 1970s office server system that he pulled out in pieces from a local business. That machine ended up going to a museum in Virginia.
鈥淚 have a few old pieces I keep,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淐ommodore 64s, Tandy 1000s, old TRS-80s, I have them all,鈥� he said, noting the old Radio Shack computers, now seen as relics, were once high-dollar items.
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