Hey everyone, I was recently reminded of the empeg community and I'm glad to see you're all still here! I'm curious to bounce an idea off your collective mind:

How safe or hazardous is it to strip soldered components off circuit boards?

I'm considering a project where I strip circuit boards and make them into useful items like 3-ring binders and boxes. I'm assuming the preparation will include using a heat gun to melt the components solder and remove them, sand the stripped boards to expose the shiny copper traces, than coat them with acrylic so they're safe for extensive handling.

But how safe or hazardous is it for me to strip off the components? Will the heated solder produce toxic vapors? Might the molten solder carry lead and other harmful chemicals? And when I sand the boards, will I need to collect all the dust to avoid spreading the toxins?

The best solution seems to build a sealed enclosure in which to strip the boards, trapping the vapors, solder and dust (the unwanted slag). I would hope it's possible to send this slag to an electronics recycler so they can feed it into their shredding, melting and separating processes like they'd do with a complete circuit board. Still, the stripping process seems very hard, especially at scale.

Thanks for any input you may have.