Desk Recycling

Desks can be a challenge both to recycle and remove from an office space. They can be very cumbersome and hard to move. In many cases some dis-assembly has to take place prior to removal. Many times it takes two workers to carry desks safely off the customer’s premise. Due to all the different materials that constitute a desk they can be very tedious to prep for recycling. Desks are usually made of wood, compressed wood, metal, plastic, and they even can have light bulbs embedded in them.

The process for recycling desks goes as follows. First, it will be inspected to see if it is reusable.Unfortunately, due to the economy the resale market has been inundated with desks. So only a relatively new desk is considered reusable.

The desk will then be dissembled into the different material types. The wood type will be determined "compressed" or "real wood". If it is "real wood" there is a potential it can be reused or made into a mulch. The “compressed” wood will go to waste to energy or be mulched for landfill cover.

All the metal will be taken out of the desk from screws, draws, fixtures, and legs.

 If the desk has a light built into it then that will be removed for light bulb recycling. Any electronics that are a part of the light will be separated for electronic recycling. If any plastic exists it will be separated in the proper piles.

Glass can be very challenging to recycle. Smelters want a very clean glass. If it is "dirty" they will want 10-100 tons of it. This way they can make it for a certain purpose. Otherwise, it can be broken down to be mixed into concrete.

As one can only imagine this takes a lot of work! The good things is E-Cycle has a lot of big moving equipment and tools that expedite this process immensely.