As you know, Gordon, I am very much pro-recycling, where it is
reasonably feasible. I do not believe that it is a question of what is
economical in the short term but a question of not wasting the earth's
valuable resources. We will suffer, in the foreseeable future and some
say before this decade runs out, from a gradual reduction of crude oil
availability. Which makes more sense, recover the copper from obsolete
electrics for reuse or mine fresh copper sulphide ore in the Katanga,
smelt it (using vast amounts of energy and releasing sulfur compounds
into the air), transport the crude ingots (also requiring energy), cast
anodes at destination, electrolytically refine it, remelt it etc. Most
of the energy required from these operations comes from oil products.
The recycled copper would be inserted in this chain as either copper
wire into the last remelt it stage, or chemically won (e.g., from
printed circuits) into the electrolytic refining stage.

Don't forget that WEEE covers a lot more than a printed circuit board.
It includes the steel boxes that computers are housed in. It includes
the polycarbonate box your monitor is in, It includes the stainless
steel drum of a washing machine. It includes the copper and magnetic
alloys, as well as the cast iron housing and bronze impellor, of a
burnt-out irrigation pump. It includes the lead glass of a TV. It
includes the lead, lithium and nickel in batteries. All these, and many
others, are far too valuable sources of raw materials just to be thrown
away in a landfill and they are all easily and economically recycled.
Recycling them will not only save on landfill space, it will save on
energy, and the cost of this will be rocketing in the not-so-distant
future, so it will help keep down oil consumption and allow our meagre
reserves to last just a little longer.

In fact, much recycling is already done and is economically viable.

That having been said, I agree that there are parts that are not easily
recycled, such as the FR-4 board itself. We have two choices here: the
first is incineration to recover the energy from the H and the C. This
can be done only in complex incinerators that can handle the toxic
components. This is also economically viable, if done in a mix with
other waste products, and is already done in some cities in Europe. The
glass ends up in the clinker/ash and the residues end up in the landfill
and occupy only about 10% of the volume. The energy is used to generate
electricity and is competitive with "conventional" electricity, despite
the flue gas treatment. The other use is to usefully "landfill" it, by
simply chopping it up and incorporating it at 1 - 2% into the bitumen
aggregate for making roads or similarly into concrete. Either way, the
quality of the asphalt/concrete is not affected and there is less risk
of leaching (and certainly not in a concentrated zone, such as a landfill).

As for the paper you cite, a 10-year old kid could drive a horse and
cart through a lot of what is said. For example, it cites Germany's
green dot system and its cost. But it does not offset this against the
need to not to produce virgin materials. Paper and plastics recycling,
which is what it applies to, IS economically viable and the recycled
materials cost about 90% of virgin materials for paper and cardboard and
80% for plastics (and reduces oil-dependence). It quotes electronics as
being flame-retarded with deca-bde, when tetrabromobisphenol A is used
for FR-4 AND polycarbonate housings. There is another point that should
be considered and that is that WEEE is European and Europe has far less
available space for landfills, so it is not possible to extrapolate
conditions to countries like the USA.

I am totally opposed to RoHS and WEEE because they are both bureaucratic
nightmares which have not been holistically or scientifically
considered. I am totally for recycling wherever possible in order to
preserve resources and to reduce energy needs and pollution, even if, at
current costs, it is not necessarily economical (although hidden costs
of producing virgin materials are often masked). Where it is not
feasible, then re-use for other purposes to reduce landfilling should be
considered. Above all, the holistic view must be considered (which the
author of the cited document did not even touch upon.

I hope this summarises a more reasonable viewpoint. I invite you to have
a look at http://www.cypenv.org/Files/weee.htm and
http://www.cypenv.org/Files/waste.htm to see more about my views at a
parochial level.

Brian

Davy, Gordon wrote:
> The lack of technical grounds for restricting certain hazardous substances in electronic products as is required by RoHS has been discussed in this forum and is widely accepted. The lack of technical grounds for recycling electronic products as is required by WEEE has also been discussed, but without the same level of acceptance. Now a major study (38 pages) of this topic has been published: "Mandated Recycling of Electronics - A Lose-Lose-Lose Proposition", Feb. 1, 2005, by Dana Joel Gattuso of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, available at  <http://www.cei.org/pdf/4386.pdf> http://www.cei.org/pdf/4386.pdf. Following the publication of this study, Ms. Gattuso has written shorter pieces based on her findings. I've copied below an excerpt from an article that appeared in the Orange County Register on March 7, available at  <http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04431.cfm> http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04431.cfm.
>
> As I have argued before, recycling electronics, now being coerced by the EU and by an increasing number of states in the US, is not noble, but wasteful. It's your money that is being wasted. I encourage subscribers to read what Ms Gattuso has written (at least the following paragraphs) and then consider the extent to which their attitudes towards coerced recycling might have been influenced by activist propaganda.
>
>
>
> Haste maketh waste, and in the fast-paced world of technology, there's a lot of it. In <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />California, home of the technology revolution, 10,000 home computers and TVs are retired daily. While that amounts to a tiny fraction of the state's total waste stream, the issue is creating heaps of hype and hysteria about what to do with the growing amount of electronic waste or "e-waste." <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
>
> The widespread panic is based on misinformation spread largely by powerful eco-activist groups who believe the growing amount of electronic waste reflects the ills of a "throwaway" society and that recycling e-waste is our moral obligation to achieve "zero waste tolerance." Among the myths bandied about are that e-waste is growing at an uncontrollable, "exponential" rate; and that heavy metals contained in computers are leaking out of the landfills, poisoning our ground soil.
>
> In reality, e-waste has remained at only 1 percent of the total municipal waste stream since the U.S. EPA began calculating electronics discards in 1999. Furthermore, the annual number of obsolete home computers is expected to level off at 63 million this year and will then begin to decline. While that still sounds like a lot of computers, it's not an unmanageable amount. Our landfills are fully equipped to handle all our waste-e-waste included.
>
> Nor is there any scientific evidence that e-waste in landfills presents a health risk. Landfills are built today with thick, puncture-resistant liners that keep waste from coming into contact with soil and groundwater. Timothy Townsend of the University of Florida, a leading expert on the effects of electronic waste in landfills, conducted tests in 2003 on 11 municipal landfills containing e-waste from TV and computer monitors, along with other solid waste. He and his associate Yong-Chul Jang found concentrations of lead far below the safety standard and less than 1 percent of what EPA's lab tests had predicted. "There is no compelling evidence," according to Townsend, that e-waste buried in municipal landfills presents a health risk.
>
> Similarly, a yearlong, peer-reviewed study released last March by the Solid Waste Association of North America concluded "extensive data show that heavy metal concentrations in leachate and landfill gas are generally far below the limits established to protect human health and the environment."
>
> The real problem is for state lawmakers who, based on misplaced fears, banned TVs and PCs from municipal landfills in 2001 and now don't know where to put the mounting discards. But mandated recycling is not the answer. The costs, ultimately passed on to consumers in the form of taxes and higher purchase prices, are staggering-$500 a ton of e-waste to recycle versus $40 a ton to landfill.
>
>
> Gordon Davy
> Baltimore, MD
> [log in to unmask]
> 410-993-7399
>
>
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