Recycling of electronic equipment

The European Union has been quite visible in recent years with such directives. RoHS (Restriction in the use of Hazardous Substances), WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment), and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemical substances). RoHS places restrictions on use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, and some polybrominated diphenylethers. WEEE targets responsible recycling of electronic equipment. REACH is a new European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use... 

Stuart, J. A., and Lu, Q. (2000), A Model for Discrete Processing Decisions for Bulk Recycling of Electronics Equipment, IEEE Transactions on Electronics Packaging Manufacturing, Vol. 23,... 

The development of electronics equipment is a good example of how material consumption can be reduced by miniaturisation. Size reduction is mainly due to new developments within the field of electronics, allowing designers to make their products smaller, thus consuming less material per functional unit. However, making products smaller may pose problems for recycling and repair, since disassembly may become more difficult and time consuming. Well-performed miniaturisation must allow for rapid disassembly to avoid unnecessary added cost to the life cycle of the assembly. 

Because of the hazardous contents of these items and other electronic waste, they can cause health and environmental problems if not managed properly. Therefore, to address these problems the RoHS and WEEE Directives were put in place. The first WEEE Directive was enforced in Eebmary 2003. It provided collection plans, where consumers could return their electronic and electrical wastes free of charge. These plans aimed to increase the recycling and /or reuse of electronic equipment (that had been discarded). 

The BSEF said that recycling was the key to future environmental sustainability of many industrial processes and it was necessary for additives manufacturers also to help users of plastics (e.g., makers of electronic equipment) to close the loop . 

Antimony has been detected in electronic waste (e-waste) from different uses. This includes use in semi-conductor components as a flame retardant, or as a synergist with other flame retardants in circuit boards (Bi et al. 2011 Lincoln et al. 2007), and in plastic housings of electronic equipment (Santos et al. 2010). Antimony trioxide is used as a flame retardant in hard polymer plastics including acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene plastic (ABS) commonly used for TV and computer housings (Tostar et al. 2013). Waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) exposure to antimony is of concern in Asia where most of the global WEEE is recycled, land-fiUed, or incinerated (Santos et al. 2010). 

In its WEEE Directive proposal, the European Commission embraces the producer responsibility principle by making producers financially responsible for the take-back, recovery, and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE. The idea behind this principle is that making producers responsible for the environmental impact of end-of-life products greatly encourages them to undertake eco-design that facilitates their recycling and environmentally sound disposal discussed in Section 2. The proposal does not require Member States to make producers responsible for the collection of WEEE from households. Producer means any entity that manufacturers and sells electrical and electronic equipment under their own brand, resells equipment produced by other suppliers under their own brand, or imports that on a professional basis, such as providers of electronic equipment under finance agreements (e.g., lease). 

A pilot study initiated by BASF and Zentralverband der Elektrotechnishen Industrie to investigate the pyrolytic recycling of plastics and metals from electrical and electronic equipment is examined. 

Shredded circuit boards. Circuit boards are metal boards that hold computer chips, thermostats, batteries, and other electronic components. Circuit boards can be found in computers, televisions, radios, and other electronic equipment. When this equipment is thrown away, these boards can be removed and recycled. Whole circuit boards meet the definition of scrap metal, and are therefore exempt from hazardous waste regulation when recycled. On the other hand, some recycling processes involve shredding the board. Such shredded boards do not meet the exclusion for recycled scrap metal. In order to facilitate the recycling of such materials, U.S. EPA excluded recycled shredded circuit boards from the definition of solid waste, provided that they are stored in containers sufficient to prevent release to the environment, and are free of potentially dangerous components, such as mercury switches, mercury relays, nickel-cadmium batteries, and lithium batteries. 

The second possibility is the European waste legislation, which includes the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS). The RoHS Directive is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) which sets collection, recycling, and recovery targets for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of toxic e-waste. 

Manomaivibool P (2009) Extended producer responsibility in a non-OECD context the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in India. Resour Conserv Recycl 53(3) 136-144... 

Sepuveda A, Schluep M, Renaud FG, Streicher M, Kuehr R, Hageliien C, Gerecke AC (2009) A review of the environmental fate and effects of hazardous substances released from electrical and electronic equipments during recycling examples from China and India. Environ Impact Assess Rev 30(l) 28-48. doi 10.1016/j.eiar.2009.04.001... 

Convention on Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and 69 ratified the ban on all kinds of hazardous waste export from wealthy OECD-countries to non-OECD countries, large amounts of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are shipped overseas for recycling, the majority to China as reported by Brigden et al. [2] and Puckett et al. [3], lesser quantities to India and Western Africa reported by Kuper and Hojsik [4]. WEEE contains a variety of harmful substances like endocrine disruptors and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Additionally, hazardous substances may be formed during informal recycling. This often practised informal treatment without proper equipment for metal extraction and labour safety heavily affects the environment and human health of workers and the inhabitants of whole stretches of land. 

In 2003, the European WEEE-Directive 2002/96/EG [5] was implemented to reduce the amount of electronic waste and foster reuse, recovery and recycling of electric and electronic equipment. Closely connected to this, the restriction of hazardous substances Directive 2002/95/EG [6] (RoHS) was adopted by the EC in 2003 with the aim to restrict the use of hazardous substances in the manufacture of electric and electronic products. 

The German Environmental Ministry is reported to have attacked European proposals to ban substances such as specific flame retardants in forthcoming regulations for recycling electrical and electronic equipment. Initial proposals from the EU Commission on the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment, include a phaseout of PBDEs, despite preliminary findings under EU risk assessment that there is no need for risk reduction from the two types, decaBDE and octaBDE mainly used in such equipment. The Ministry is said to be concerned at the excessively prescriptive and restrictive system being proposed, and that substance restrictions should not be addressed in waste legislation, but should be based on life cycle risk assessments. 

Major uses of PS are in packaging and containers, toys and recreational equipment, insulation, disposable food containers, electrical and electronics, housewares, and appliance parts. Expandable PS is used to pack electronic equipment, such as TVs, computers, and stereo equipment. Legislation was put in place in some states to insure the recycling of PS. Interestingly some of this legislation was written such that all PS had to be recycled within some period of time, such as a year. This legislation was changed to reflect the real concern of fast food containers when it was pointed out that less than 10% PS is used in this manner and that well over twice as much was used as house insulation that should not be recycled every year or so. 

R. Balart, L. Sanchez, J. L6pez, and A. Jimenez, Kinetic analysis of thermal degradation of recycled polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadi-ene-styrene mixtures from waste electric and electronic equipment,... 

P.A. Tarantili, A.N. Mitsakaki, and M.A. Petoussi, Processing and properties of engineering plastics recycled from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), Polym. Degrad. Stab., In Press, Accepted Manuscript, 2010. 

WEEE has had a direct affect on flame-retardant use, because flame retardants are used in almost all electrical and electronic equipment to prevent fires from short circuits. This directive lays down rules for disposal and recycling of all electrical and electronic equipment that goes back to the previous incinerator discussion. For flame retardants, this directive affects how the plastic parts, cable jackets, and enclosures are flame retarded. If the plastic cannot be reground and recycled, it must go to the incinerator, in which case it cannot form toxic by-products during incineration. This has led to the rapid deselection of brominated FR additives in European plastics that are used in electronics, or the complete removal of FR additives from plastics used in electronics in Europe. This led, in turn, to increases in electrical fires in Europe, and now customers and fire-safety experts demand low environmental impact and fire safety. However, the existing nonhalogen flame-retardant solutions brought in to replace bromine have their own balance-of-property issues, and so research continues to develop materials that can meet WEEE objectives. 

Schlummer, M., Maurer, A., et al (2006) Report recycling of flame-retarded plastics from waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). Waste Management and Research, 24(6) 573-583. 

Today important flows of plastics originate in mandatory recycling schemes, such as those imposed by take-back obligations on packaging, End-of life vehicles, or waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). For such materials, the drive for collection and recycling is not normally economic, but mandatory. In snch cases, there is often a dump fee, to be paid for farther processing a stream of waste plastics into recycled products. The value of such fees varies from some 50 /tonne for injection into blast fnmaces in the European Community to as much as 50-100 kYen ( 370-750 /tonne)... 

Waste from electrical and electronic equipment arises at the sorting plant, where the frame, the printed circuit board PCB, the cathode ray tube, etc. are separated for recycling. The remaining plastics fraction is in part flame-retarded, hence contains brominated and antimony compounds. The number of WEEE recycling plants is growing, so that the logistics are no longer a major problem. 

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