Bobb,

>The lead in the "dumps" issue concerns the dissolution of the lead component
>of solder into ground water.

The draft European WEEE legislation proposes prevention of electronic
equipment
being consigned to landfill. An additional ban on the use of lead solder
therefore
cannot be justified for this reason. There are also existing technologies
for the
recovery of the lead from the solder in obsolete electronic hardware.

>The Good News is that there's already
>off-the-shelf practical solutions.

All of the proposed replacements are significantly more expensive than
tin/lead.
Most also require a higher reflow temperature and hence greater energy costs.
There are also issues regarding the reliability of the alternative alloys. As
far as I am aware no cost/benefit analysis has been undertaken to justify a
ban,
but as usual the European Commission does not regard factual evidence
neccessary
before it drafts legislation.

David Whalley

>>     I heard from recent discussions with my German counterpart, that in
>>     Europe, they are eliminating the Lead in the solder process. This is
>>     becasue of environmental impact studies that Lead content for any type
>>     of scrap material being in the PCB's to conponents leaves a certain
>>     percentage of lead in the "Dumps".
>>
>>     If anyone can shed any light on this subject I would appreciate it.

################################################################
TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c
################################################################
To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body:
To subscribe:   SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name>
To unsubscribe:   SIGNOFF TechNet 
################################################################
Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information.
For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312
################################################################