BRING OUT YOUR DEAD-Solutions to electronic waste （3）

Published:2011/8/14 22:23:00 Author:Phyllis From:SeekIC

By Chris Bayliss

Designing for minimum waste

The Fraunhofer Institute has developed a software product to assist the electronics designer. The software-based IZM/EE Toolbox (Figure 2) enables the electronics designer to investigate a range of areas from toxicity and recyclability of a design to more abstract areas such as the energy required to produce the raw materials required, even the energy consumed by the product. In the future the electronics designer may integrate complex green issues at the design stage with the push of a button. Creative thinking at the design stage has the potential to both clean up the product life cycle and provide the consumer with desirable new technologies. Sony recently demonstrated this with their Blu-ray disc. (Figure 3). Consisting of 51% paper, the new disc provides greater data storage than existing DVD technology (Figure 4) and offers greener mass production opportunities. At the end of its working life the product can simply be shredded and recycled, offering both a green end of life solution and enhanced data security.












Dealing with electronics waste effectively either at the design or end of life stage could be considered an insurance policy for the electronics industry. The European Union already predicts that 10,500 new jobs could be created by electronics waste recycling. For the electronics consumer and enthusiast the future not only looks greener but we could be seeing some innovative new technologies emerge. Today’s green electronics pioneers will lead the market tomorrow.

Looking East

ADSM and EDL offer pioneering solutions using available technology. All this technology still requires one essential ingredient, imagination. If we want to see electronics waste management in aciion then look no further than the heartland of electronics, Japan.

In 2001 Japan implemented its Electrical Home Appliances recycling law. The recycling law covers only four types of appliances; air conditioning units, televisions, fridges and washing machines. These were found to constitute a significant proportion of Japanese consumer waste.

Consumers in Japan can now return their old appliance to the vendor of their new purchase irrespective of the brand. The vendor passes the used appliance over to a recycling company. Each returned product is tagged and its recycling history recorded and stored for three years. This gives companies a unique perspective on the life cycle of their product and provides an overall picture on recycling. From the consumer end the returned product can be tracked via websites. Information regarding where the product was recycled is available. If this sounds too good to be true then you would be right. The Japanese consumer covers the cost of transporting and recycling the waste.

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