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Hi<BR>
<BR>
On Fri, 2011-08-05 at 09:35 -0400, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
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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 .<BR>
<BR>
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.<BR>
<BR>
Off topic stupidity, most people do not realize that fluorescent lights should be disposed as a hazardous waste - mercury is the culprit.<BR>
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-- <BR>
<FONT SIZE="4">Jay Lozier</FONT><BR>
<FONT SIZE="4">jslozier@gmail.com</FONT>
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