Cascade's disassembly technicians carefully separate hazardous materials from recyclable commodities to ensure proper treatment and recovery.

Cascade applies various processing technology to recover the greatest yield from end of life electronic equipment. 

By using both manual disassembly techniques and on-site shredding and separation technologies, we provide a thorough process for converting unwanted electronics into recyclable resources while ensuring hazardous materials are contained properly. Our recycling processes are annually audited to the e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling, ensuring we provide best in class processing for our clients.

Starting with disassembly
Over 30 Cascade staff are involved in the disassembly of used IT assets into component parts for further reclamation by audited downstream processors.  First, they look to remove hazardous materials from equipment in a safe manner including, fluorescent lamps from laptops and LCD monitors, batteries from a wide variety of devices, and whole CRTs with leaded glass.  Then, they look to harvest reusable components to resell for clients (when allowed).  Finally, they separate the remaining equipment into over 50 different commodity streams.  By separating into more streams, we ensure a better recovery yield from processed equipment because we reduce contamination that needs to be dealt with by downstream processors.

Shredding provides assured destruction and separation
We supplement manual disassembly with automated shredding and separation.  Each Cascade facility operates a shredder to provide secure destruction of hard drives and other media.  The shredder is appropriate for processing non-hazardous materials in a safe and efficient manner. Materials are also sent to approved downstream shredders and smelters to further destroy and recycle the materials.