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Electronics Recycling and EOL Management
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Environmental initiatives currently are a hot topic in the electronics industry, primarily due to recent legislative developments.
By Dongkai Shangguan
The EU Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) legislation deals with hazardous substances such as lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE. The EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) legislation, several years in the making, mandates that effective 2006, producers (typically companies whose names appear on the product) must be responsible for the take-back and disposition of their products at end-of-life (EOL). The legislation is designed to tackle the increasing waste stream of electrical and electronic equipment. In Japan, the "Home Appliance Recycle Law" of 2001 mandates that 60 percent of the e-waste must be recycled. In the United States, recycling programs are in place in many states and localities. Legislation similar to WEEE and RoHS is being considered in China
WEEE is anticipated to greatly impact the industry. The legislation covers "equipment dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic field and equipment for generation, transfer and measurement," including "components, subassemblies and consumables, which are part of the product at the time of discarding." Indeed, this is very broad in scope. Producers are responsible for the take-back and disposition of products, including collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal. No less than 70 to 75 percent (by weight) per appliance must be "recovered," including no less than 50 to 65 percent through reuse and recycling. The financial impact on the industry is estimated to be billions of dollars annually.
Recycling and environmentally responsible EOL management are considered the ultimate solution to the environmental concerns posed by the ever-increasing volume of electronics products. Simultaneously, increased recognition of the potential economic value of the "cradle-to-cradle" approach to product EOL management provides additional impetus to accelerate efforts in this important business arena. OEMs, EMS providers and recycling companies, along with consumers and national/local governments, all have important roles to play in the process.
Functional signature analysis methodology offers a powerful tool for managing EOL, by assessing the remaining life of the components and modules, and thereby enabling the conscious and managed reuse of functional components and modules (including electrical, mechanical, electronic, electromechanical, etc.) and their reintroduction into the product lifecycle. This cradle-to-cradle approach promises to fully exploit the "total economic lifecycle" of products. Often, a product is retired from the market, either because of functional failures of the product caused by one or more nonfunctional components, or because the product is no longer valued by the customer for reasons such as introduction of a newer model. The "valued lifetime" of a product often is much shorter than its viable physical lifetime (or life expectancy). Even if the product is retired from the market because of true functional failures, a large number of components and modules in the product still may have a considerable remaining lifespan.
By assessing the remaining lifetime of the components and modules of a product at the end of its first life through signature analysis, certain components and modules of the product can be appropriately recovered for new use ("second life"); for example, to be assembled into new products, knowing the remaining lifetime of the components and the target life of the new product.
Dongkai Shangguan, Ph.D., director, advanced process technology, may be contacted at Flextronics, 2090 Fortune Dr., San Jose, CA 95131, (408) 428-1336; Fax (408) 576-7988; E-mail: dongkai.shangguan@flextronics.com.