Touring the plant at Materials Processing Corp. is like watching Santa's workshop in reverse.
Workers at the Eagan-based facility disassemble a personal computer in 10 seconds. A giant shredder turns circuit boards into bite-sized chunks that workers shovel into giant bins for recycling. Forklift operators in green and blue jumpsuits create mountains out of boxes stuffed with cables, keyboards, cell phones, TVs and computer screens.
If you've ever wondered what happened to the laptop you dropped off at Best Buy or the old TV you hauled to your curb on recycling day, chances are it ended up in a graveyard of gadgets just like this.
For companies such as Materials Processing Corp., known as MPC, Americans' unending need for electronics means growing business.
MPC collects all manner of electronics from businesses, municipalities and consumers and doesn't put a single scrap into a landfill. More than 95 percent of the aluminum, steel, copper wire, precious metals, plastic and glass gets recycled, and the other 5 percent gets turned into fuel at renewable energy plants, according to MPC.
"We don't own a single dumpster," said Todd Schachtman, MPC's president of global business development, highlighting a point of pride for the company.
Minnesota's laws have put the state at the forefront of the electronics-waste, or e-waste, movement. It has been illegal to throw away TVs and computers since 2006, and new regulations added in 2007 put the onus on electronics manufacturers to pay for recycling. The state now has more than 200 registered collection sites for consumer electronics, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
This growing e-cycling mind-set among businesses and consumers has cranked up the volume at MPC and other businesses that collect old electronics in Minnesota, including Asset Recovery, Waste Management and CRT Processing of Janesville, Wis.