The Center for Recycling of Dilapidated PC Equipment was established in 2005, as a pilot center of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Kragujevac and is the first such center in the Republic of Serbia. The center is related to the use of expensive and recyclable materials and the preservation of an ecologically clean and healthy environment, and it should grow into a profit center that would operate within the faculty.

The center is currently implementing a multidisciplinary project related to the Technological Development Program, implemented by the Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection TR-6709 "Development of recycling systems for electronic and electrical equipment" and funded for a three-year period from early 2005 to late 2007. The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Kragujevac, the Faculty of Engineering in Novi Sad and the Mihailo Pupin Institute in Belgrade.

According to unofficial data, over 500 thousand - used and new - personal computers (PCs) have been imported on the territory of the Republic of Serbia in the last 15 years, and their number is constantly increasing. As the projected lifespan of one PC computer is 5 years, that means that today there is a large number of used PC equipment on the territory of Serbia.

Waste PCs within computer devices belong to the group of waste electronic and electrical devices and are categorized into the group of biohazardous waste. This group of waste is a source of secondary raw materials that can be directly used in the recycling process in appropriate domestic and foreign production processes, and on the other hand the management of this waste provides conditions for the lowest risk to human life and health.

In order to manage such waste, it is necessary to focus research on recording the quantity and geography of bulk of such recyclable material, then explore the possibilities of its organized regional collection, sorting, transport, treatment or disposal and determine the conditions for handling this waste in a way that provides the least risk for human health and the environment. As through the treatment of hazardous waste, through changes in physical, thermal, chemical and biological processes and levels of selection of waste components and materials, we work to change the characteristics of waste, special attention is paid to technologies related to reducing waste, facilitating waste management and recycling, which involves the processing of waste materials in specific production processes.

Outline content of the Center's work:

• Recording the quantity and distribution of RS equipment on the territory of Serbia.
• Determining the age structure of RS equipment.
• Determining the quantities of still usable RS equipment.
• Determining the quantities of unusable RS equipment intended for storage.
• Sorting unusable RS equipment into useful and useless components.
• Estimation of commercial value of unusable RS equipment.
• Defining the level of recycling of RS equipment.
• Market research - domestic and foreign - use of recycled materials.
• Recycling technology at levels adapted to domestic conditions.
• Implementation of recycling technology in the initial center for collection of waste RS equipment.
• Organizing the formation of a larger number of regional centers for collection and recycling of RS waste at the level of Serbia.

Manager of the Center - Dr. Bogdan Nedic, full professor