Try this out, go around your house and open some of the cupboards, drawers and cabinets. You are bound to find, USB cables, audio video cables, dial-up cables and a lot more cables that you no longer use. As we move from the wired to the wireless world, cables seem to be finding their place in corners of the house or closed cupboards. So, what should you do with this junk?

Obviously you shouldn?t just dump these in the trash – e-waste can be a big source of pollution if not properly recycled. First you should try your family and friends. Usually you can find someone who can use a USB cable, if nothing else. But, what if you can?t find any friends or family members who can use one of those extra cables or chargers? Is there a way that we environmentalists can do something to reduce this waste?

There are a couple of ways?..if the wires are insulated copper wires with a covering, you could take the time to strip the copper wire, so there is nothing but "shiny bright" copper in the load of wire and sell the copper to a scrap dealer so that it can be reused.

There is also another way. Most people are not aware that you can recycle cables and cords. Everyone knows about cans, bottles, etc. but you can recycle your used cables and cords the same way that you can recycle cans and bottle. You cannot do it at the grocery store so you have to know where to take these items. There are cable recycling centers that do this:

1. Densification – The material is densified using balers and shears to maximise haulage efficiency and prepare material ready for the furnace or foundry.
2. Shredding - Shredding material down to optimum size means we produce a high quality product and allows the re-capture of materials for further processing which would otherwise be lost.
3. Post-shredder advanced metal separation - once the metals are recovered through shredding, there is a residual stream which is made up of some remaining metal fragments, plastics, foam, glass, aggregates, wood, textiles, rubber and water, these things are further recycled with appropriate technology.
4. Plastic recovery - The plastic is sent to a recycling plant where it is streamed to reduce it to a uniform size and then it enters a series of screeners, classifiers, washing lines, metal separators and other sorting systems.  The end product plastic grades are of such high-quality that they are used as a direct replacement for virgin material.
5. Waste to energy - Having recovered all that is suitable for recycling, the next step is to turn the rest into electricity. Using patented technology, some plants propose to put the waste through a non-incineration pyrolysis process that will turn it into energy. This would represent a significant development in ?End Stage Recycling? and by diverting it from landfill and transforming the remaining waste residue into a sustainable fuel which is more efficient than coal. It will also allow us to recycle the last remaining metals which were previously unrecoverable. At this point we will have achieved our goal of zero waste and will produce more energy than we actually consume, making us a truly sustainable business.

This is a process that is beneficial to the environment in more ways than one and also helps us get rid of a lot of junk in the house. There is a way we can help as individuals and companies can take up such initiatives to provide environment-friendly machinery to the general public.

It is small things like this that are going to make the bigger difference.

Here are a couple of videos that helped me understand the process, it?s quite informative and fun to watch as well J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sQ-6wBfIG0

http://www.changwoen.com.tw/Full-version-video-9.html