These products contain a wide variety of materials. PCs, for example, are made from several types of plastic, silica, aluminum, steel, copper, and small amounts of gold, silver, cadmium, and mercury. When labor, transportation, and residual disposal costs are factored in, however, PC recycling can result in a net loss. One of the most challenging materials to recycle in electronic equipment is plastic.
Manufacturers use many different types of plastic in electronic equipment.
These plastics often include contaminants such as metal screws and inserts, coatings and paints, foams, and labels. Currently, plastics in electronic equipment are both difficult and costly to sort for utilization in markets requiring single resin feedstocks, and there are limited markets for the mixed plastics stream. As a result, CRTs are costly to recycle and can pose a hazard to the local waste stream. A young but growing electronics recycling industry has developed in the United States. A majority of electronics recycling firms were established after 1990, and the top ten firms process 75 percent of the electronics recycled in this country.