Gordon,
Agree with your assessment of a 3 stage approach. When you dig deeper into
the commitments cited by Dr. Turbini, most are stage one commitments - use
of lead-free solder.
I am confused, however, concerning your statement regarding the 4th draft of
the WEEE directive: "That draft, incidentally, pretty much exempts lead in
stages 2 and 3.." How did you arrive at this conclusion?
Regards,
Todd Brady
Product Ecology Program Manager
Intel Corporation
phone: (480)554-1677
fax: (480)554-4071
-----Original Message-----
From: Davy, Gordon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LF] How lead-free is lead-free?
Dr. Laura Turbini reported the announced plans of some Japanese
manufacturers to remove lead from their products. What has not been made
clear in any of the plans I have seen is the extent of lead removal.
Ignoring the issue of lead as a trace contaminant (i.e., not intentionally
added), there are three stages:
1. Use of a lead-free solder
2. Use of a lead-free finish on board lands and all component terminations
3. Use of only lead-free components (for example,
* no lead-containing component material such as PLZT
* no lead-containing seal glass
* no lead-containing fastener alloy)
I recall that Mr. Tom Baggio, a subscriber to this forum, announced in his
presentation at the March APEX his company's schedule for all three stages.
I don't know whether that schedule has ever been published, but maybe he
would be willing to comment. It would be interesting to see the three-stage
schedule for any company that has announced their plans to go lead-free.
I have not seen any announced plans for a company to produce products that
are free of any of the other materials identified in the European Union's
draft WEEE directive as environmentally unfriendly - in particular
halogenated flame retardants, hexavalent chromium, and cadmium. At least
with draft 4 the deadline for removal has been moved out to 2008.
That draft, incidentally, pretty much exempts lead in stages 2 and 3, so it
will be interesting to see if that has any impact on the Japanese lead-free
plans. Until a company gets past stage 1, I'd like to suggest that for
clarity it replace the claim "lead-free" with "made with lead-free solder."
Gordon Davy
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