The supply chain begins with procurement of raw materials? Where
does it end? It doesn’t with the consumer!
Everyone agrees that the supply chain for any particular product
begins with the procurement of raw materials. If you are producing a
printer, you need plastic, ink, electronics, metal and other components.
These are sourced from raw material suppliers or from other suppliers
further up the supply chain. Raw material suppliers sell plastic
pellets, steel in rolls, or electronic components to make up a circuit
board. These components are assembled into a finished product.
The different components of the printer, the chassis, the circuit
board, the plastic, the ink are assembled in another step of the supply
chain. The finished product then goes to the warehouse, where it waits
for an order. When that order is received the material is shipped to a
retailer, who in turn sells it through to you and me. Is that the end?
No! I recently had a tour of the SIMS recycling facility in Roseville
CA. Here is the not the end of the supply chain, but a link in the
supply cycle. Here is where the last value is recovered from electronic
devices. Obsolete and returned electronic devices are stripped of
their last value, their residual value.
In the case of the printer we described above. The printer is
stripped quickly of the plastic shell. The plastic goes on a box, the
wire harness goes into a different box, and the circuit board goes in
its own box. The plastic is ground into pellets. Each metal is
separated, aluminum, steel, copper is salvaged from the wire. What’s
left is ground up and separated. Each of the commodities are sold on
the open market by SIMS metal. Plastic is added to virgin pellets and
sold, adding post consumer material. No electronic material goes to the
land fill, everything is recycled. Even the packing material is
recycled!
Other electronic equipment such as computers are disassembled and the
components that have value are recovered and resold. Batteries are
separated by chemistry, and shipped another SIMS plant where the
commodity components are recovered and resold. Monitors and televisions
are a challenge since the tubes contain lead. These are accumulated
and shipped to another SIMS plant, where they remove the gas and lead.
The truck that delivers the tubes brings back electronics they have
accumulated.
But what makes this a truly “green” facility is all the power is
generated by wind and solar! The air being exhausted from the facility
is cleaner then what it takes in, through use of filters.
The supply chain is not a linear chain, but a loop, where there is
value in the product even after its useful life is over! I will never
think of any product the same, and will think about the intrinsic value
that each object has. When you buy anything, consider what will happen
when you are done with it.
I welcome your comments.
