Recycle Your Old Electronic and more

Each year, Americans throw out 3 million tons of electronic waste, more than any other country. Most of this waste ends up in landfills and incinerators. These traditional methods of waste disposal have one big flaw: they release their contents into the environment. Landfills produce leachate, a mixture of rainwater and dissolved waste. Incinerators burn their waste, releasing harmful gasses and particulates.

These methods of waste disposal are especially dangerous when electronic waste is among the trash. Circuit boards, batteries, bulbs and motors contain harmful toxins and carcinogens. For example, the control board in your major appliance might contain Mercury, Lead, Cadmium, or Beryllium Oxide. When these boards are thrown out, these harmful substances make their way into the environment as leachate and smog. There has to be another way!

The excellent phrase, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” holds true here. Most of the components found in electronic waste are recyclable! Because of the high demand for electronics in general, recycled materials are used by many manufacturers. In addition, some companies, like CoreCentric Solutions, recycle the whole control board.

Recycling old electronics helps the environment and the economy. Instead of tossing your old appliance parts in the trash, Think Green and recycle. It’s easy! Just take your old part to one of our many recycling centers. You can find a list of appliance part recycling locations here.

Saturday October 27, 2012 CoreCentric Solutions is sponsoring a Recycling Extravaganza at their main facilities at 175 Wall St, Glendale Heights, IL. Here from 9 am thru 1 pm you can drop off your electronics, light bulbs, powertools and more to recycle. There will even be a free secure paper shredding service available. For more info visit http://www.corecentricsolutions.com/published/recyclingevent.

When it’s time to buy another part, Think Green and buy remanufactured parts. These components are made to meet or exceed OEM standards and even come with a warranty. You can find hundreds of these parts and more information here.

Finding an Appliance Part Number

So your appliance is broken. What now? Fixing it is almost always better than buying a new one, because it can save you money and save that appliance from the landfill. If you can identify which part is faulty, then dealing with that individual part is the best solution. Whether you buy a part directly from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), buy a remanufactured part (often the more economical option) from a company such as CoreCentric Solutions, or use a repair service such as CoreCentric’s Return for Repair (RFR) service, you will need to know the part number beforehand.

There are a lot of numbers on every board. There are labels for individual components, date codes, part revisions, and different numbering systems for each manufacturer as well as within the manufacturer itself. Unfortunately there is no standard, so you are going to have to do some troubleshooting, and work off of these guidelines to find the right digits.

1.      Look for labels not directly printed onto the board. 

A good clue for finding a part number is if it is on the label. You can also see in this example that the label says, “GEA Part No.” so the part number (also called a control number) should be fairly easy to find.

2.      Avoid the date code. One of the most common errors for the novice part number finder is to mistake the date code for the part number. For the part pictured above, the part number is easily laid out, but for other parts, there will be no indication as to which number is which function. Date codes are often shorter, and may have certain letters and number standing in for years or months. The format of the date codes can change depending on the manufacturer.

3.      Identify Patterns – Try to find similarities between these part numbers and the numbers on your board.

            Bosch        -    486752 -> 6 digits

16-10-623 -> 2 digits – 2 digits – 3 digits

Frigidaire -     5303272309 -> 9 or 10 digits

GE              -    WB27T10611 -> Often starts with W and another letter, eg: WB, Wh, WE, WR, etc.    

                        336282 -> 6-7 digits

Whirlpool -    6610269 -> 7 digits

These are just a few examples. Your board might have a different numbering system altogether.

4.      If you find that your online search for the part number comes up empty, then you may have the wrong number or your part might be no longer available (NLA). If you think that your part is NLA, consider using CoreCentric Solutions’ Return for Repair service. You can search your part number on the Return for Repair price list and have CoreCentric Solutions repair your part in only 2-4 business days. 

What is Remanufacturing?

What makes remanufacturing special? How is a part remanufactured? What is the difference between a remanufactured part, a repaired part, a used part, a recycled part, and a broken part? How can I find a remanufactured part?

These are all important questions. Remanufacturing is a process that replaces the components which are most likely to fail or are obsolete. A remanufactured part meets the standards of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and is the same quality as a new part. Currently, remanufactured products range from car engines, to office furniture, to durable appliance parts, and more. An appliance part remanufacturing company such as CoreCentric Solutions meets the OEM guarantee by diagnosing the susceptible modes of failure, replacing all components that may be causing the failure, and then performing a 100% full functional test on the resulting remanufacturing control board.

The process differs from simple repair because in a repair, the technician will diagnose the problem for each individual board and fix or replace the singular cause of the problem. The repair process does not offer as much longevity or quality as the remanufacturing process because any one of the other susceptible failure components could be on the brink of causing yet another trip from your appliance technician.

Remanufacturing is often the better option than buying a new part because it is cheaper, meets the same OEM requirements as the new part, and may even have any corrections present in later revisions.

Remanufacturing is also special because of the decreased strain on the environment. Fixing a durable appliance is the first step towards environmental conservation because it keeps the whole appliance out of a landfill. Buying a remanufactured board is a further step because it keeps the boards, which contain chemicals that may be harmful to the earth, in circulation and out of the air.