Desco Electronic Recyclers is a world class WEEE (Waste Electronic & Electrical Equipment) recycler, which has earned a great reputation in the management of recycling electronic equipment. Consumers no longer have to keep their old electronics in the dreaded “box of wires and old phones.” Desco’s service covers collection of electronic waste, secure destruction, recycling and warehouse clear outs of any electronic and electrical equipment.

What’s being recycled?

Desco’s recycling expertise covers all types of electronic & electrical equipment imaginable:

• UPS
• Cells
• Laptops
• Monitors
• Printers
• Servers
• LCD screens
• Generators
• Electrical motors
• Radio Equipment
• Medical Equipment
• Consumer appliances
• Modems/Routers/Switches
• Telecommunication Equipment
• CPU boxes / PC boxes (desktop sets)

Desco also deals with medical and healthcare equipment such as X-rays, CT scanners and laser equipment. Careful consideration is given by ensuring that accepted equipment is inert before Desco employees handle it.

What’s involved in the recycling process?

Desco has benchmarked its recycling processes against the highest level of global standards. Their focus is long term environmental sustainability whilst adhering to the heist ecological standards in a time of immense technical advances. Desco’s recycling process is broken into various distinct categories such as sourcing, collection, sorting and hand dismantling, shredding and processing for metals recovery from printed circuit boards (PCB’s).

Sourcing:

Desco has a call centre where the employees call corporates, government enterprises, companies, municipalities and any enterprise to offer the free collection of their e-waste, providing it is over one ton.

In addition to the Desco Website, they also advertise on various platforms where company updates are posted.

Collection:

Desco has invested in an efficient transport fleet which allows them to collect e-waste from customer sites. E-waste collections are done free of charge depending on the value of the materials and the weight. For customers who prefer to drop their e-waste at Desco, our highly secure business premises manned by trained personnel has a drop off area right at the main entrance. Drop-off is efficient, and is an excellent way to clear the clutter in your house. Clients are given the leeway to choose between dropping off the e-waste at the gate, or enter the premises for weighing and selling purposes. Frequently calibrated and serviced scales ensure that fraction weight measurement is done without unnecessary delays at the drop off area. Collected materials are held 7 days in secure storage before destruction. Depending on the volume, weight and value of the e-waste, Desco then uses a set price list to determine how much they will pay a client.

Sorting and hand dismantling:

The end goal of sorting and dismantling is to separate device streams into material streams. In other words, dismantling electronic equipment into its original pre-manufactured metals and plastics state.  Materials recovered are iron, aluminium, copper, zinc, printed circuit boards (PCB) and different types of plastics. The goal of this stage is to upgrade the valuable material content, remove and safely dispose of hazardous fractions.  It is during the sorting and dismantling process that printed circuit boards (PCB) are separated into low, medium and high grades.

All the e-waste is hand dismantled with pneumatic tools and the various metals are deposited in bins for resell to downstream vendors. Hazardous fractions are sent off to specialized companies for disposal.

Shredding

At Desco, all units brought in for destruction are shredded and photos and video footage taken.  This is then attached to the destruction certificate. This includes hard drives, magnetic tapes, tablets, cell-phones, GPS units, and devises with sensitive information. This is to ensure that all data is safely destroyed for customer protection. This service is charged to the client.

Processing For Metals Recovery on the PCB:

The processing for metal recovery from printed circuit boards (PCB) is done primarily for the copper but it also contains traces of gold, silver and palladium which is recovered by copper smelters in Europe. This is a very specialised process that Desco is presently looking to bring to South Africa.

For E-waste recycling or to book a collection, Desco can be contacted here.