[ale] Off Topic, hard drive shredder

Geoffrey Myers lists at serioustechnology.com
Fri Aug 5 16:03:58 EDT 2011


Jim Kinney wrote:
> Home Depot will accept for recycling compact flourescent bulbs at the 
> service desk. Long tubes are also accepted!  I'm standing at the service 
> desk and was just informed ALL Home Depots will do this.
> Heh, heh. Lowes will certainly jump on this as well.

The last time I asked the one in Kennesaw, they said they didn't take 
the long ones.  I'll check with them again.
> 
> On Aug 5, 2011 3:04 PM, "Charles Shapiro" <hooterpincher at gmail.com 
> <mailto:hooterpincher at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  > Argh. I realize all too well that flourescents are hazardous waste. The
>  > problemo is that there is no simple way for a private individual to 
> get rid
>  > of them legally.
>  >
>  > -- CHS
>  >
>  >
>  > On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 11:42 AM, planas <jslozier at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jslozier at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  >
>  >> **
>  >> Hi
>  >>
>  >>
>  >> On Fri, 2011-08-05 at 09:35 -0400, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
>  >>
>  >> On 8/5/11 12:47 AM, Sparr wrote:
>  >> > I've recently come into possession of a large security disintegrator,
>  >> > designed for shredding things like hard drives and tapes and such. I'm
>  >> > trying to figure out what to do with it. Selling it is, of course, an
>  >> > option, but I was thinking of possibly starting up a small security
>  >> > business to destroy hard drives for people. Is there a market for that
>  >> > in Atlanta?
>  >> It would make a big difference if your apparatus of mindless destruction
>  >> were mobile. But you are going to have a waste stream like nobody's
>  >> business; some of that will be leaded solder, which is toxic. One thing
>  >> you could certainly do without too much difficulty would be to separate
>  >> out the ground-up magnets; run the refuse past a piece of iron that gets
>  >> scraped off periodically. I don't know what all the composition of disk
>  >> drive magnets would be in the field - I'd suspect samarium cobalt and
>  >> neodymium. What you recover could potentially be press-formed into
>  >> fairly decent magnets, suitable for electricity generation, but as far
>  >> as actually separating out the metals into bulk material with a net
>  >> positive value, I dunno.
>  >>
>  >> Possessing this device only makes sense if it's actively being used, so,
>  >> congratulations on having entered the waste processing business! :)
>  >> _______________________________________________
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>  >>
>  >> Once you grind up the hard drive you could attempt to recover the metals
>  >> present using a combination of physical and chemical methods. The metals
>  >> should be a reasonable purity to sell .
>  >>
>  >> If limited metal recovery is done you probably will have D- series 
> (unless
>  >> the EPA has a specific classification) hazardous waste. I do not 
> know the
>  >> current prices for hazardous waste disposal. But when I was handling 
> waste
>  >> disposal I found there was roughly a 10x difference between the 
> charges of
>  >> non-hazardous waste and a hazardous waste.
>  >>
>  >> Off topic stupidity, most people do not realize that fluorescent lights
>  >> should be disposed as a hazardous waste - mercury is the culprit.
>  >>
>  >> --
>  >> Jay Lozier
>  >> jslozier at gmail.com <mailto:jslozier at gmail.com>
>  >>
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-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson


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