Motherboards for mother nature

By Shaun Inguanzo
KETTLES and toasters could eventually kill the earth – unless we learn to recycle them.
That’s the message from Rick Wakelin, director of PGM Refiners, who recycles electronic waste – known as e-waste.
Recycling e-waste is undertaken to clean up the planet, save landfill space, and make a little money in the process.
The Hallam-based company receives about 17 tonnes of e-waste per month from councils, businesses, and residents, but Mr Wakelin said the amount is minuscule compared to what sits in peoples’ homes.
“E-waste recycling is in its infancy in this country, although it had been going on for a while in places like Europe,” he said.
“The problem is that there has really been no push from the government to make it a legislated disposal method, meaning people can just throw their e-waste into landfill.”
And that, Mr Wakelin said, poses one of the greatest environmental threats of our time.
In any one circuitboard or computer motherboard there are as many as 28 non-renewable resources, including precious earth metals such as gold, silver, platinum and copper.
But there are also plenty of contaminants that, when buried in landfill, leech into nearby waterways, and pose an environmental risk to wildlife, livestock, and consequently, humans.
Mr Wakelin said one LCD television light tube contained 3 milligrams of mercury.
“It might not sound like much, but it could easily contaminate water within an area of 20 acres, and leave a $51 million clean-up bill,” he said.
The Hallam site dismantles products into their various components, while the Sydney site breaks down the components into metal concentrates, and sends the extracted plastic away for recycling.
Scrap metal is sent from the Hallam site to local scrap metal recyclers in Dandenong South.
The metal concentrates are then sold overseas to companies who melt it down into pure metal chunks to then resell to the metal market.
“Everyone thinks that it’s just computers we recycle, but we also do mobile phones, vacuum cleaners – the lot,” Mr Wakelin said.
The company also has a community focus.
Mr Wakelin said just like paper and plastic recyclers, it has worked with rural communities such as Warrnambool, where it can not justify its own site, to work with a local adult disability centre.
The result is that people with disabilities are trained to dismantle electronics to send to the Sydney site, all the while being able to work and earn a wage in their own community.
Residents can drop their e-waste to PGM Refiners at 51/A Rimfire Drive, Hallam, for a small fee.
Businesses with a high volume of e-waste may be able to arrange a special bin that PGM Refiners can collect, but must contact Mr Wakelin on 9796 5596.