Gem City Recycling
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Sorted before they ship, not after.
Sometimes responsible for a flickering fluorescent or failing HID lamp. We process magnetic, digital/electronic & the ones already attached to the lamp itself.
How old is the fixture?
Ballasts look interchangeable in a box and they are not. One answer sends them down the ordinary route. The other sends them down the one with its own paperwork.
Treat it as PCB until the label says otherwise.
If the fixture was installed before 1979 and the ballast is original, assume yes until the label says otherwise. Send a photo of the label and we will tell you.
The label settles it, not the guess.
Photograph the label before anything moves and send it with your pickup request. We will tell you which route it is on. That is a five minute answer, and it is free.
Whole fixtures are fine by us.
Ballasts still attached to the fixture are on the accepted list. Pulling them out to be helpful creates handling you do not need to do.
Two kinds, two records.
If your building was wired before 1979, some of your ballasts almost certainly contain PCBs, and PCB ballasts carry their own disposal rules and their own penalties. We sort them, pack them separately, and document them separately.
The costly version of this job is not the disposal. It is a leaking ballast found in a pile that went out documented as something else. PCB units carry their own handling rules and their own penalties, so the sort has to happen before the pickup, not after it.
PCBs. Pre-1979 ballasts are handled on a different track, and mixing them is the expensive mistake.
- Magnetic ballasts
- Electronic and digital ballasts
- PCB-containing ballasts (pre-1979)
- Ballasts still attached to the fixture
- Emergency ballast packs
Do the sort as they come out.
A retrofit crew pulling fixtures can separate suspect units as they go at almost no cost. Separating them later, out of one mixed pallet, is the part nobody wants.
- 01Keep suspected PCB units separate from the rest as they come out of the fixture.
- 02Bag anything that looks wet, stained or swollen rather than stacking it with the dry ones.
- 03Photograph the label before it goes in a box. The label is what settles the question.
- 04Leave ballasts that are still attached to a fixture as they are. Do not cut them free.
Documented separately, because they are handled separately.
Certificate of Recycling
The document that says the material was recycled and names where it went. It is the piece an inspector or an auditor actually wants to see.
Source · their archived About page: "Send Certificate of Recycling"Disposal paperwork for the file
The proper paperwork and certificates verifying environmentally responsible disposal, made out to the business that generated the material.
Source · their archived About page, near verbatimElectronic copies
We take care of the paperwork and make sure you have electronic copies, so the record is not one sheet of paper in one binder.
Source · their archived About page: "We take care of the paperwork & ensure you have electronic copies"Gem City collects and transports. The processing facilities are separate registered operations, and the certificate names where the material was delivered.
Roughly when the fixtures went in, and what the labels say. If the building predates 1979 and the ballasts look original, lead with that.
No price appears on this site on purpose. A hundred ballasts out of a warehouse retrofit and a handful out of a back office are different jobs, so we would rather talk it through than put a number on a page.
Send the label. We will tell you which route it is on.
The suspect units go out on their own record, the rest go out on theirs, and you can show which was which. A photograph of one label answers most of this before a truck moves.