To recycle a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) from a flash drive depends on a couple of key factors. Most important are the materials used when making the PCB and the available recycling processes once the old USB flash drive is sent for recycling.

Not that many are super interested in this, but here is the breakdown for recycling a printed circuit board from a USB flash drive:

A flash drive’s PCB is mostly made up several key materials where each material serves a specific purpose in it’s operation. Most of the device, about 60–70% consists of fiberglass or epoxy resin, which provides structural integrity. Copper traces and layers inside the PCB, making up 10–20% of the product and used as electrical conductivity for the electronics product. Additionally, electronic components such as integrated circuits (ICs), capacitors, and resistors account for 10–15% of the board’s composition – this plays a crucial role in data storage and processing. The remaining 5–10% consists of various other materials like gold plating, solder, and adhesives, which contribute to connectivity, durability, and assembly.

When recycling a USB flash drive only certain materials are truly recoverable.

Copper, which makes up about 10–20% of the PCB, is highly recyclable and is often extracted during the recycling process.

Gold, though only about 1% of the board, is valuable and found in connectors and contact pads, BUT requires specialized methods for recovery.

Silver, present in trace amounts, can sometimes be found in solder or coatings and is also recoverable.

Electronic components, which constitute 10–15% of the PCB, can sometimes be desoldered and reused, though most are shredded and smelted to extract precious metals. However, fiberglass and epoxy resin, making up the majority (60–70%) of the PCB, are difficult to recycle and typically end up as waste or are repurposed as filler material.

For example, during the PCB recycling process, copper is often separated using a combination of mechanical shredding and chemical treatments, allowing it

It is interesting to receive donated USB flash drives and where they’ve come from. It is clear this website finds people from all over the world. Most donations come from people inside the United States and we can only assume that is related to the inexpensive shipping cost to send us recycled flash drives.

For this round of postings to say thank you, we used chatGPT to insert the state bird for the associated location of those who donated. A lot of interesting bird names, most of which we are not familiar with. If you have donated and interested to hear your state’s bird name, look no further!

• Ursell – Katy, TX (Northern Mockingbird)
• Nathan Sobczak – Elma, NY (Eastern Bluebird)
• M Clark – Orinda, CA (California Quail) *Mentionable: Once and For All (www.onceandforall.biz)
• Unknown – Munster, IN (Northern Cardinal)
• Nathan Roaih – Reno, NV (Mountain Bluebird)
• Naomi Ford – Mansfield, CT (American Robin)
• Chris Rawlings – Cambridge, UK
• Chris McGunnigle – Hackettstown, NJ (Eastern Goldfinch)
• Unknown – Pittsford, NY (Eastern Bluebird)
• Tim Huans – Oakland, CA (California Quail)
• Gretchen Kunkel – Akron, OH (Northern Cardinal) *Mentionable: GHK Consulting (ghkconsulting.net)
• Ashley Crowe – Montgomery, AL (Yellowhammer)
• Katherine Rodeghier – Western Springs, IL (Northern Cardinal) *Mentionable: Freelance Photographer and Writer
• Sherry Woolridge – Pageton, WV (Northern Cardinal)
• Sarice Jaehn – Cardiff, CA (California Quail)
• Judith Labounty – Fort Smith, AR (Northern Mockingbird)
• Gogley – Oviedo, FL (Northern Mockingbird)
• F Henry – Boston, MA (Black-capped Chickadee)
• Janet Williams – Fenton, MO (Eastern Bluebird)
• Ursell – Katy, TX (Northern Mockingbird)
• The Binyamins – Bronx, NY (Eastern Bluebird)
• Chris Ball – Matthews, NC (Northern Cardinal)
• Makamae Edayan – Kapaau, HI (Hawaiian Nene)
• Michelle Long – Bridgeville, PA (Eastern Bluebird)
• Unknown – Salira, CA (California Quail)

The other reason we listed the state bird after each donar’s location, is that we find it challanging to simply re-write the same “thank you” each month for all the donations… but since we are on the topic, Thank you.

Thank you for those who donated to Recycle USB for the repurposing of USB flash drive media. If you are new to the website, please visit our Mission Statement page about what we do and how our website “recycles” USB flash drives. Our service is not the assumed and traditional “recycle” process most associate with e-cycling electronics.

Most recent donations came from the quality people listed below:

• Ryan Orgera – Alexandria, VA
• Rich Sherman – Santa Monica, CA
• Victoria Kirby – Hoboken, NJ
• Scott Petty – Pittsboro, NC
• ??? – Briarcliff Manor, NY
• Mr Ferdon – Battle Creek, MI
• Coy – Boston, MA
• Angie Reyes – Bothell, WA
• ??? – River Valley, NJ
• Travis Miller – Cambridge, MA
• Donald Hardin – Riverside, CT
• Sheli Radoshitzky – Frederick, MD
• Santesh Kumar – ???
• Laura Labriola – Fairfield, NJ
• Mike Diamantes – Los Angeles, CA

Audimation Services Inc – Huston, TX – Thank you for the large three box donation; however, after testing 10 random drives, none of the drives worked or functioned in a Windows computer; therefore RecycleUSB cannot use these drives for the SugarLabs project. We will coordinate with our local electronics recycling center to properly dispose of the items. We very much appreciate the effort and wanted you to know the final resting spot for your kind gesture.

Since December of 2021 here is the list of people who’ve donated flash drives along with a picture for proof of processing. We wonder, does anyone ever check back on our site to make sure their package was received and processed?

Once again, thankless job for those putting in the effort to package up and ship out USB flash drives to be recycled.

The full list of people who recycled USB drives between our last post and today:

• Allieoop Bricks & Figs – Peoria, AZ – These folks have a unique website which is about buying used Lego blocks. Here is their webpage link for buying used Lego blocks.
• Nora Quinn – Claremont, CA
• ??? – San Rafael, CA
• Mohle Miller – Portland, OR
• ??? – Pleasanton, CA
• Laura R – New York
• Liz Welch – Raleigh, NC
• Esther Shmagin – Minneapolis, MN
• HAQ – Richardson, TX
• Jazz – Hanton, CT
• Joan Schramm – Annapolis, MD
• Stephen Byrd – Willow Springs, NC
• Jasmine Mcgurk – Roswell, GA
• Kristin Knopf – Washington, DC
• Bowers – Marysville, PA
• Weber – Tomah, WI

Twenty people/organizations have donated their flash drives for recycling since our last post in September of 2020. Your time and effort to package up and ship off your unwanted flash drives is much appreciated. As we’ve said before, these drives will be cleaned up (formatted and data erased) from the donor with our flash memory copier equipment and repurpose the drives and sent to sugarlabs.org for re-use.

Here is the list of twenty who contributed since our last post:

• Ravi – San Mateo, CA
• Stephanie Shae – La Palma, CA
• Thomas Hearns – North Ridgeville, OH
• Feltault Family – Topsfield, MA
• K Nuss – Pacific Grove, CA
• Ryan Mitchell – Puyallupa, WA
• Gloria Yehilevsky – Poway, CA – Check it out: www.gloriaymusic.com
• Risan – Menlo Park, CA
• Jamie Schmidt – De Pere, WI
• Lily Kim – San Diego, CA
• Thomas Mielke – Flower Mound, TX (sounds like a nice place)
• Cathie Lee – Laguna Hills, CA
• M.T. Taglang – Bethleham, PA
• Kendra Lewis – Somersworth, NH
• Rooney – Naperville, IL
• Jocelyn Delmar – Kenmore, NY – Check it out: www.etsy.com/shop/paragraphloop
• Daniel Potts – Walton, KY
• Charles Hotchkiss – Everett, WA
• S. McMahon – Biscayne Park, FL

Recycle USB is a website for people looking to recycle their USB flash drives for a better cause.

Send your USB to school.

Each donated drive is loaded with Sugar, making it Sugar on a Stick.  Sugar is a standalone computer operating system which runs off a USB flash drive.  Sugar is developed to provide children a free portable and interactive learning environment in a self contained thumb drive.

Sending your USB stick to a recycle center holds far less Good Will then sending your USB stick to a child wanting to learn.

Here is how the USB journey begins:

• Step 1: Collect all your old and unused USB flash drives. **Sugar requires a minimum 1GB stick**
• Step 2: Send your USB drive(s) to RecycleUSB.com
• Step 3: We receive the drives and perform a low-level format to clean the drive of any data.
• Step 4: We then data load “Sugar On A Stick” operating system onto your donated USB flash drive to make the portable learning computer
• Step 5: We send the finished product to Sugar Labs for deployment to any number of locations throughout the world.

Once Sugar Labs receives your donated drive, it is then deployed to any number of possible locations around the world.  Your generous donation could go to a child in Peru, or South Africa or Thailand!  Your flash drive will become a portable computer for a very lucky child.

This Good Will act of sending in your USB stick is far greater than recycling old components of a flash drive for a couple pennies in return