October 8th, 2007
Folks,
In a world drowning in electronic waste, where less than 10% of electronics are recycled, RoHS is more about recycling, than protecting the environment from the six RoHS banned materials. The long term goal of WEEE and RoHS is that more and more of electronic waste will be recycled. However, recycling electronics with lead , mercury, cadmium, etc . is not easily safe. This recycling need is the reason RoHS was established, to make recycling safe enough so that recycling can easily become a EU wide and then world wide industry.
The hope of WEEE is that there will eventually be little e waste that goes into the environment, it will almost all be recycled. The high value of tin and silver will also encourage this recycling and minimize the need to mine more tin and silver.
Certainly there are and will be legitimate concerns with RoHS compliant assembly, especially in the arena of long term reliability, and work needs to continue to address these concerns. However, it has been 15 months since the enactment of RoHS and about $500 billion worth of RoHS compliant product has been manufactured world-wide. The many companies report that the reliability of the products produced has been equal or better than that produced with tin-lead solder. Some of these companies have had near RoHS compliant products (i.e lead-free products) in the field since 2001…....six years.
So even with the continued call for Roll Backs, I expect RoHS is here to stay. As far as I know, none of the roll back proponents has been able to get a bill launched in the EU Parliament(see photo)in Brussels to initiate the roll back process!
Cheers,
Dr. Ron
weee recycling:
The RoHS is doing sterling work and I think it’s going to have to work hard to keep pace with solutions to recycling the ever more exotic ingredients used in batteries.
Keefaz:
Why not just build products which will last rather than thinking of recycling them even before they are built ?
Rick Short:
(I work at Indium Corporation)
@Keefaz: Your sentiment is spot on. I agree! But, there is an old saying, “If you fail to plan, you can plan to fail.”
Planning for end of life is not a bad thing. Designing products to be recyclable is better than having no plan for end of life.
I agree that products should be more robust, used more/longer, and even reused. For example, I would love to use ONE laptop for 10 years. That said, in 2007 it is impractical to expect to use a laptop for 10 years (though it should be a design goal).
And it should also be a design goal, when that laptop is discarded, that it present a minimized threat to our waste stream.
When building anything, we should plan for end of life. If not, we can plan to fail our environment.
Keefaz:
@Rick Short: You have a point.
But you said yourself : “in 2007 it is impractical to expect to use a laptop for 10 years (though it should be a design goal).”
But if I am an electronic manufacturer and I make products to last more than 50 years, with proven building quality and sufficient proven customers interest ?
With RoHS, there is no reason to build electronic quality products anymore, as the recycling is at design step
That makes no sense to me, where the world is going to go with this concept in mind ?
When you plan to make a baby, do you plan also his/her interment ?
Rick Short:
I am not preaching, just enjoying the discussion – hoping to learn. I appreciate your point of view.
I believe that, just because a product is more easily/efficiently recyclable, doesn’t mean that it also has to be “disposable”. It’s just smart.
Competitors battle on many fronts. Some common areas of differentiation include: service, price, total cost of use, performance, quality, product life, image, brand, prestige, convenience (and many more).
We all purchase one or more products for their durability (versus the competition). My son recently selected a product (snowmobile clothing) because it was of high quality/performance and would last longer than the alternatives – and the item happens to be easily reusable and recyclable (he hopes to delay the inevitable for a good long time).
Today’s electronics goods (especially consumer electronics) themselves are blamed (at least their manufacturers are) for being designed to have a short useful life.
I contend that, for the most part, for mainstream vendors, the devices are designed to last a useful life based on the degree and pace of software/hardware/application innovation that occurs. It is very unlikely to be able to design a cell phone today that will competitively deliver all the converging performance requirements that will be de rigueur in 2017. In such a case, a 2016-designed competitive device would surely render a 2007 device completely obsolete and uncompetitive (who knows what we will be doing with a “cell phone” then???).
Our issue isn’t that companies want to design and produce near-term waste. The fact of the matter is that we are in a period of tremendous technological growth.
Given that truth, we owe it to ourselves, and the environment, to control our consumption. That includes reducing the sheer volume of stuff we accumulate (production reduction) as well as demanding that everything we DO consume be more easily reusable/recyclable.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This is healthy!
Justin:
Am I the only person that thinks the legislation is focusing not on the mouse, but on a flea on the back of the mouse – not the elephant – when you consider that the major users of lead, which also happen to have the shortest shelf-life, i.e, CRTs and Car Batteries, are exempt from ROHS?
Professional equipment, which typically has a lifespan of 20+ years, is unable to use minute quantities of leaded solder, meaning that repair work will typically increase the risk of damage to the PCB due to the higher temperatures involved, yet it’s not allowed any lead content in the solder, but batteries and CRTs can go on regardless?
And we haven’t touched on the subject of tin whiskers yet…
Why is that, when you read the exemptions lists, the more political lobbying power an industry has, the more exemptions it will have?
Why have the major consumer electronics OEMs been so quiet on this issue, yet the retooling has cost them millions of dollars / Euros? Could it be because they know the legislation will put every OEM on a ‘level playing field’, whereby nothing lasts longer than 3 or 4 years?
What do the lead-free proponents have to say to Howard Johnson, Phd, who believes the ROHS legislation will create infinitely more damage to the environment than prevent? http://www.edn.com/article/CA6477864.html?nid=2431&rid=203930815
Does anyone here know their subject better than Johnson? Is he ill-informed?
The ROHS legislation is a classic example of what occurs when bureaucrats, with no qualification or experience whatsoever within the industries over which they legislate, are allowed free-reign to make laws.
I fully support the majority of ROHS goals, such as cadmium reduction. However, by not letting OEMs use a few milligrams of lead, I believe the days of buying a hi-fi or TV that will last 20+ years are over. The bureaucrats obviously believe we are all mindless consumers who change our electronics every couple of years…and that there is no such thing as professional electronics… With the death of reliable electronics, what about the carbon footprint created by the extra production of new equipment needed to replace that which is either un-repairable (due to high iron temperature harming the PCB), or possessing complex faults due to tin whiskers? How many consumer appliances are repaired these days anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to prevent them malfunctioning in the first place?
Justin
Justin:
BTW – That should read ‘irreparable’, not ‘un-repairable’ :)
jaycee:
This also has implications for hobbyists – using lead free solder is often out of the question for us, and also many hobbyists (such as myself) often recycle old electronics for parts.
Soon, we will be unable to do this as the lead free solder will be difficult to remove while leaving the parts intact – which means more waste!
What I find most irritating is that the building industry is still allowed to use lead flashing on roofing – which is directly eroded by rain and ends up in the soil and water system – far more polluting than waste electronics!
Ami Elbaz:
Dear Sir,
Our company has the availability of 5 tons/month of Tin Rohs (94%-Tin, 3%-Copper, 3%-Silver). Can you refer me to a party who might be interested in the procurement of this material.
Sincerely, Ami 917-294-8801 Cell