The only irrelevance now is not accepting this is going to happen

certainly in the EU, whether it be technically right or wrong. All the

EU countries have signed up to it just as they did for EMC. The time for

fervent campaigning against it was several years ago, not now when

deadlines have been set. It would take massive unified action by global

electronics manufacturing and probably the automotive industry to turn

the tide on this decision. 



Even then it is not just an EU matter, other countries outside the EU

are further down the Pb-F path already.



Pb-F will soon become national law for those in the EU and for those

wishing to export to the EU - fact, so get on with it!



The winners will be those who accept this is what will happen, just as

was the case with EMC.



I find your penultimate paragraph narrow minded and arrogant with not a

shred of truth in it, and not typical of your more better informed and

knowledgable countrymen and women of whom I have the pleasure to work

with.





Regards,

 

Chris

____________________________________________________ 

Chris James

Engineering Services Manager 

Dolby Laboratories, Inc.

 

 



-----Original Message-----

From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robin Ingenthron

Sent: 04 May 2004 14:38

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: [LF] the tiny amount of lead in electronic assemblies is

irrelevant.



Mr. Santhakumar



As a professional environmentalist and recycler, I am increasingly in

agreement with Joe and Harvey about the lead-free legislation.   



First, the release of metals is rarely most important at the point of

solid

waste recycling or disposal.  For example, more mercury is produced by

gold

mining than is produced by mercury disposal and mercury mining combined.

Legislation which results in mercury-free products with increased gold

content would result in more kg. of mercury released into the

environment.

(As a caveat, I have not had the time or found anyone else putting time

to

research the amount of lead which may be released by changes in tin

mining

and copper mining which will result.  If it's shown that mining and

exploration will decrease as a result of lf then I may change my vote).



Second, if the point of recycling (and secondarily, disposal) is the

narrow

focus of the lead measurement, then it is true that we recyclers will

produce less lead as a by-product by shredding lead-free boards.

However,

we are pretty unconvinced that there will be any measurable change in

our

incoming stream over the course of the next 10 years as a result of lead

free (since so much of the used material we receive is "historical").

For

the amount of money it will take to eliminate that portion of the lead,

we'd

rather see it invested in recycling or increasing repairablity and

reuse,

which are the main source of our income.  (We'd be alarmed if the

lead-free

boards were to be less repairable, though we've been told that's not an

issue in previous answers to our posts on this forum).



For me, the single most suspicious thing about lead-free legislation is

that

its national support seems to correlate in countries with older, more

depreciated, manufacturing lines, as opposed to countries which have

newer,

less depreciated lines.  In other words if a country's OEM is thinking

about

retooling anyway, it's less of a concern if competitors with newer

plants

are forced to retool sooner. 



If the environmental benefits are demonstrated (point 1 and 2 above), we

environmentalists are not opposed to this type of "raising the bar" by

executive fiat.  But if it's absent, we see it as squandering the

opportunity to leverage a more meaningful environmental activity... Put

that

energy into energy conservation or something.



Robin Ingenthron

802-382-8500

[log in to unmask]

[log in to unmask] 



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