Remove copper from circuit boards.

“Remove copper from circuit boards.” is a supplemental task performed by Recycling and Reclamation Workers. Among the occupation's 18 rated tasks, workers place it 1st by importance (#18 most important).

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Collect and sort recyclable construction materials, such as concrete, drywall, plastics, or wood, into containers. · importance 4.3
• Sort materials, such as metals, glass, wood, paper or plastics, into appropriate containers for recycling. · importance 4.3
• Extract chemicals from discarded appliances, such as air conditioners or refrigerators, using specialized machinery, such as refrigerant recovery equipment. · importance 4.2
• Deposit recoverable materials into chutes or place materials on conveyor belts. · importance 4.2
• Clean recycling yard by sweeping, raking, picking up broken glass and loose paper debris, or moving barrels and bins. · importance 4.1
• Operate balers to compress recyclable materials into bundles or bales. · importance 4.1
• Clean materials, such as metals, according to recycling requirements. · importance 4.0
• Operate forklifts, pallet jacks, power lifts, or front-end loaders to load bales, bundles, or other heavy items onto trucks for shipping to smelters or other recycled materials processing facilities. · importance 4.0
• Sort metals to separate high-grade metals, such as copper, brass, and aluminum, for recycling. · importance 4.0
• Record logs of recycled materials or waste chemicals removed from products. · importance 3.9
• Operate processing equipment, such as fiber-sorters and grinders, to sort, crush, or grind recyclable materials. · importance 3.8
• Clean, inspect, or lubricate recyclable collection equipment or perform routine maintenance or minor repairs on recycling equipment, such as star gears, finger sorters, destoners, belts, and grinders. · importance 3.8
• Collect recyclable materials from curbside for delivery to designated facilities. · importance 3.6
• Operate automated refuse or manual recycling collection vehicles. · importance 3.6

See all tasks on the Recycling and Reclamation Workers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-17887,
  title  = {Remove copper from circuit boards.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-17887}
}