California Electronic Asset Recovery has established a mail-in recycling program with an Israeli medical device manufacturer. A CEAR manager highlighted the potential of direct dealings with OEMs.
“I do believe that this is the way the future is going to lend itself, to these kinds of partnerships,” said Kristin DiLallo Sherrill, marketing director at CEAR.
Based in Mather, Calif., near Sacramento, CEAR is recycling a newly launched technology from Theranica Bioelectronics, a Netanya, Israel company. The small piece of equipment, called Nerivio, uses electrical neuromodulation to provide pain relief for migraine sufferers. Patients strap the smartphone-controlled device to their upper arms during treatment.
Theranica first reached out to CEAR about a partnership, DiLallo Sherrill said. Through their program, when patients exhaust the device after 12 treatments, they’re able to mail it to CEAR using prepaid shipping envelopes. Because the FDA-approved product just launched, and because it has an average estimated life of three months, CEAR doesn’t expect to start receiving them until early 2020, explained DiLallo Sherrill.
Once it receives the devices, CEAR will manually remove the lithium-ion batteries before sending the rest of the device, which consists of a small circuit board and plastic, into a shredding and separation system. CEAR’s processing equipment includes a centrifugal force shredder, knife shredder, granulator, optical sorter, magnet and eddy current separators.
The commodity value is all in the small circuit board. DiLallo Sherrill said she couldn’t discuss details of CEAR’s financial arrangement with Theranica.
She emphasized the benefits of working with OEMs, noting that it gives recycling companies the opportunity to provide design-for-recycling input. When the products are easier to recycle, processing costs are reduced, she noted.
CEAR sees a future with other arrangements similar to the one with Theranica.
“I believe there will be a lot of take-back partnerships in our future for companies that have common goals like Theranica and CEAR,” DiLallo Sherrill said.
