Interco works with electric companies and electric cooperatives to recycle electric meters. Electric meter recycling in Detroit proves to be an essential practice due to the significant level of changes with the advancing electric meter technology.
Analog electric meters once required a meter reader to walk around neighborhoods, read the meters, and return to the office. After this process, they needed to physically enter the information to process a receipt for the services. Eventually, smart meters displaced analog meters. Smart meters changed the methodology of data gathering for utility companies.
The introduction of smart meters meant meter readers never again needed to walk house-to-house. They could drive a well-equipped van through an area and collect the data transmitted directly. Smart meters continue replacing analog meters. Today manufacturers produce much smarter meters equipped with 5G capabilities.The new meters offer more exactness and data security and can pinpoint the exact region of a meter inside two or three feet or less.
Electric organizations will have more out-of-date meters in the next decade than in the past 25 years because of these upgrades in technology. Along these lines, organizations must continue to recycle utility meters.

Preparing to Recycle Electric Meters
In order to recycle utility meters correctly, companies must understand the different types of meters:
- Analog meters with glass covers
- Digital meters with glass covers
- Digital meters with plastic covers
Why Recycle Electric Meters
After Interco gets the appropriately packaged scrap utility meters without glass coverings, the technique to recycle electric meters begins. Interco has many years of experience in electric meter recycling in Detroit. This experience licenses Interco to have up to a 98% material recycling and recovering rate. Interco will proceed with this rate by:
- Detaching stainless steel rings and collars
- Refining all non-ferrous and ferrous metals
- Disconnecting circuit boards
- Baling cardboard boxes

- Insulated copper wire
- Aluminum ground wire
- Brass screws
- Printed circuit boards
- Steel