"By the presence of contaminants, the scarcity of resources, the cost of production that represents the extraction of metals and many reasons, is necessary the collection and specific treatment of waste RAAE". According to Ramón Altadill, commercial director of Electrorecycling, these would be the main reasons for the transfer, treatment and recovery of obsolete electrical and electronic equipment or no longer in use. Management in which the citizenship has a key role: "it is easy to realise - continues Altadill - on the need to recycle those bulky equipment, but not the case with the small electrical appliances, mobile phones or smaller toys, likely to end up deposited in places unsuitable for their recovery". And it is that the volume of waste of the RAAE grows at a rate three times higher than the rest of urban waste. As a result, increasingly occupy more space in landfill sites which have a limited life. Not separate and properly treat the components of these devices, the operation of incinerators is difficult. With the start of the analog switch and the forced intrusion of DTT is expected to increase in the recycling of monitors and televisions with cathode ray tubes. Come on, those of life. "Among the growth already experienced during the year 2009 and which will take place throughout this year, we are moving in a 30% increase in the number of TVs on the 2008", recognizes Altadill.

First company in Catalonia which deals and value monitors and televisions with cathode rays, according to Royal Decree 208/2005 tubes

The project Electrorecycling arose in 2001, following a public tender from the Catalonia waste Agency. At that time, there were companies as Ferro Vallès that recycled waste RAAE of appliances of white line. However, there was no company with the necessary machinery for the separation, identification, treatment and recovery of materials from monitors and televisions with cathode ray tubes. "The reason was the search for the best solution with regard to recovery for electrical and electronic equipment plant, in the same locality, six years earlier had been inaugurated a facility to treat refrigerators and similar appliances." "And in 1997, a plant to handle lamps and batteries", argues the commercial director of Electrorecycling, who joined in 2002 to organise the collection of materials and supervising the construction of the plant in El Pont de Vilomara i Rocafort, in the comarca of the Bages (Barcelona). "This last was carried out with the collaboration of Indumetal Recycling as a 'partner' technological and Pilagest, owned by path environmental and building constructions and contracts, responsible for the monitoring of the works." "The waste collection began with companies involved in this area, from January of the year 2002, time Electrorecycling begins its activity", says. While it finalized the works of the plant in Catalonia, the wastes were sent to Indumetal Recycling where dealt with until the end of the year 2003 when opened the facility in the Catalan resort. "Throughout the year 2002, already is whose 1,300 tons of Weees", it qualifies Altadill.

During the period 2004-2009, Electrorecycling spent to treat and enhance 4,000 tonnes of waste therefore to 14,000 tonnes. "Initially, and after the inauguration of the plant, they worked around twenty employees in a single turn." "Currently, the installation creates some fifty jobs although at the moment is valued the deployment of additional personnel on a third shift, based on most monitors and analog TVs receiving", says Altadill. By type of business, 70% of the totality of the Weees it receives Electrorecycling come from the points of collection, i.e. the domestic sphere. The rest are of industrial origin. The scope is limited to Catalonia, Andorra and Balearic Islands, while the rest of the country cover companies such as Indumetal Recycling, with treatment plants in the municipalities of Asua (Vizcaya) and San Agustín de Guadalix (Madrid), company management environmental SA (Egmasa), public society of the Junta de Andalucía, among others. Once received the recycled devices, the system begins with the manual separation of those readily identifiable components. "Then qualify teams in two different processes, depending on whether it is televisions and monitors, or other equipment." In the first case, we separate the two types of glass, we aspire to match your interior, we identify the electronic part which we will add to the other process, as well as insulators and cabled already separated. In the second case, fragment appliances so that the capacitors and batteries are separated without crushing for subsequent shipment to the appropriate plant. "Moreover, metals are separated and managed, just like the postcards", graphically detailed Altadill.

Once away from the rest of Weees, monitors and televisions are placed at the bottom of a slide with a conveyor belt that leads them to the bureaux of selection which separates the casing of the monitor. The plastic housing is selected according to their composition and quality (of polystyrene or black plastic, high-impact, also known as PS, ABS plastic, the monitors) and is later, crushed. If the TV is very old, it may be the casing of wood. Then proceeds to separate the different electronic components: card PCB, rosettes, winding, etc. The next step focuses on the cathode ray tube, containing lead and phosphorus powder, two of the most damaging environmental elements. The first, focused on the glass of the cone and the second, impregnating the glass of the screen. With a diamond disc follows the contour of the pipe and through a few incandescent tapes burned until that for heat stress causes a break. From there broke the glass of the cone, less thick than the screen. The latter, due to its lower lead content, can be used for any subsequent application. However, the glass of the cone is very rich in lead, so it is vitrificará and you will be given a new use in the construction of ceramics, and enamels. The texture is more rugged than the normal, although much pottery more resilient to possible scratches.

When these teams have been dismantled, there are different fractions, depending on the type of material. There is a first sieve which gives rise to the first grading separation. The finest passing through a magnetic separator that separates the non-ferrous ferric fraction. The more granular flows through another route where is another magnetic separator that performs a similar function to the first. In short, every fraction has to be clean, free from improper. Otherwise it is reprocessing. Finally, operators depart manually all the resulting fractions: transformers, aluminium, copper, cables, cards of printed circuit board, wood, stainless steel, brass, capacitors and batteries. All of them will be reaching external managers licensed by the Catalonia waste Agency.