Hi-Tech Trash: Have our e-dumps become safer?
Scientific American featured a thought provoking article in November 2007 titled--Trashed Tech: Where Do Old Cell Phones, TVs and PCs Go to Die? The enormity of the problem of electronic waste and the urgent need for producing toxin free electronic components could not have been discussed better. I had a serious conscience attack about replacing my old cell phone after reading the article!!
According to the UNEP, if all the sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total more than 50 million tons a year worldwide!! A large part of this junk pile ends up in landfills and releases lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic substances into the ground. Significant amount of the e-waste also finds its way to developing countries in Asia and Africa for re-cycling where salvage firms use dangerous practices to extract metals from circuit boards in order to sell them for profit. Apprehensive e-gadget consumers like me would naturally ponder about the regulations being put in place to thwart the malady of hi-tech trash.
A significant directive called the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive was introduced by the European Union in the year 2002. The directive imposes the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the manufacturers of such equipment. A follow up called the Restriction of Hazardous Substances or RoHS (pronounced as Row-Hoss, Ross, Rowsse, Rose depending on the country!!) was introduced by the EU in 2003. RoHS, also referred to as lead free directive, restricts the usage of six hazardous materials (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ether) in the manufacture of electronic and electrical equipment. RoHS is closely linked to the WEEE directive since its intent is make the recycling and disposal of e-waste safer through usage of safer and eco-friendly components.
The tightening of environmental compliance measures poses a big challenge to Hi-Tech Component Manufacturers and Distributors today since there is not only a cost of compliance but also a high cost of non-conformance. The key issues faced by hi-tech distributors are in the areas of:
1. Segregating RoHS compliant and non-RoHS compliant inventory for the same part
2. Managing the product change from non-RoHS compliant product designs to lead free product designs
3. Receiving RoHS compliant product information from hundreds of suppliers & manufacturers and effectively managing it to provide RoHS compliant product designs to customers.
Despite these challenges, giant steps have been taken by the National Electronics Distributors Association (NEDA) to come up with a position on Lead Free Product Transition and RoHS Compliance. Some of the recommendations include the creation of separate part numbers for lead free product designs and the usage of a Lead Free Information Worksheet for component manufacturers to provide comprehensive RoHS compliance information to distributors.
With these measures in place, electronic and electrical gadget owners will feel a little more comfortable when they go replacement shopping this holiday season. I will definitely keep my eyes open for Lead Free and RoHS compliant models. The key question now is: have we done enough for environmental compliance in hi-tech and are the regulations consistent world over, especially in third world countries? The jury is still out on that….Any thoughts??
