E-Cycling Made Easier
BY IVAN BERGER
WE ALL HAVE A STAKE in protecting the environment, and that includes
producers, users, and recyclers of electronic equipment. Governments around the
world are pressuring both users and producers into environmental virtue through
regulations, mandates, and directives. But a new program, based on a new IEEE
standard, aims to entice rather than coerce.
IEEE Std. 1680 will make it easier to recycle the tons of outdated computer
equipment that ends up at waste facilities such as this one in Bordeaux,
France.
IEEE Std. 1680 was announced in May at the IEEE’s International Symposium on
Electronics and the Environment, an event attended by recyclers and computer
manufacturers as well as engineers. The “Standard for Environmental
Assessment of Personal Computer Products” is the IEEE’s first environmental standard
and the first U.S. national standard on computer recycling. The Green
Electronics Council (GEC) is listing products that comply with the standard at
_http://www.epeat.net_ (http://www.epeat.net/) . Compliance is voluntary.
Most provisions of the standard, and the approach of listing environmentally
compliant products, are potentially applicable to all areas of electronics.
But for now, the standard covers only computers and monitors, which accounted
for about 2.79 million tons—out of a total of 236.1 million tons of
electronic waste—in the United States alone in 2003, the last year for which the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has complete figures.
As advancing computer designs render fairly young machines obsolete, and
multiple-computer households become more common, a greater number of computers—
many still functional but obsolescent—will be disposed of. Today, a little
more than 10 percent of such discarded hardware is recycled; the rest gets
buried in landfills, exported, incinerated, or just left to clutter users’
storage space. The new standard aims to extend computers’ useful life, and make
them easier to recycle, in ways every stakeholder should be able to accept.
TOUGH NUTS TO CRACK Today’s computers are not easy to recycle. Many are
difficult to take apart. Disassembled, they’re a hodgepodge of materials: some
valuable, some hazardous, some that can be recycled and some that can’t, often
mixed together. And recyclers often have no clear indication of which
materials are which.
Until recently, computer makers have had little reason to consider such
points, and buyers had no way of knowing how “green” their prospective purchases
were. Purchasers who most need to know are governments and other
institutions, which are the major buyers—and scrappers—of computer gear. According to
the EPA, about 10 000 computers owned by the U.S. government alone join the
waste stream every week.
“Thirteen federal agencies have signed the EPA’s Federal Electronics
Challenge, a pledge to buy greener electronic products, reduce the impact of their
use, and dispose of obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe way,”
says Holly Elwood of the EPA, co-chair of the IEEE committee that developed IEEE
Std. 1680. Many private firms have similar policies.
“Those agencies [which include the Departments of Defense, Justice, Energy,
and Transportation] account for
84 percent of the federal IT budget—and that
budget amounts to about 7 percent of the world’s IT budget,” Elwood says.
By providing a series of green product benchmarks along with product ratings,
IEEE Std. 1680 and the GEC aim to give purchasers the knowledge they need.
Computer makers that want to reach environmentally aware buyers might now
choose to produce greener products.
That’s different from motivation by mandate, the approach that has prevailed
around the world. In Europe, for example, a Restriction of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS) directive limits the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, and other toxic
substances in new electronic equipment sold after June 2006 (IEEE Std. 1680
requires RoHS compliance). A European directive on waste electrical and
electronic equipment mandates that, as of 2008, manufacturers take back products
for free and recycle at least 65 percent of the products’ average weight.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have electronics take-back regulations. China,
which has outlawed the import of electronics waste containing toxic
materials, is considering similar legislation. In the United States, a state-by-state
patchwork of electronics recycling laws is emerging; at least 10 states are
considering or have passed electronics recycling laws, an approach that
almost guarantees inconsistency.
REWARDING GUIDELINES In 2002, a nonprofit environmental group, the Zero
Waste Alliance (_http://www.zerowaste.org_ (http://www.zerowaste.org/) ), proposed
a different model to the EPA: “Rather than coming up with a standard and
trying to stuff it down people’s throats,” says IEEE Member Larry Chalfan,
executive director of the alliance and co-chair of the IEEE P1680 Working Group, “
we should identify what the market really wants and help manufacturers
understand it. That will help purchasers get what they need and reward
manufacturers for developing it, through market access and visibility.” That strategy,
Elwood adds, should “get environmentally preferable products into the
marketplace.”
More stringent recycling guidelines would reduce the amount of time it takes
for electronic equipment, such as this computer, to become obsolete.
With EPA funding, Chalfan says, “we pulled together major procurement folks,
as well as recyclers, academics, and so forth, to work out the elements of
this [approach]. The development teams also included people from the
governments of four states working on recycling laws. It was a chance to harmonize the
laws.”
Working out the details, and shaping them into a standard that met IEEE and
American National Standards Institute requirements, took three years. “The
IEEE process ensures that the standard has been developed in a very open and
public way,” adds Reggie Caudill of the IEEE Computer Society, who is chair of
the IEEE’s Technical Committee on Electronics and the Environment. “The
process requires that no single interest group hold the majority role, and that
all interested stakeholders take part.”
Since mid-July, buyers have been able to assess the "greenness" of
prospective computer purchases by checking them against the product registry at
_http://www.epeat.net_ (http://www.epeat.net/) . At the top of the Electronic
Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) ratings chart—and given so-called “
gold” status—are products that meet all 23 of IEEE Std. 1680’s required
criteria plus at least 75 percent of the standard’s 28 optional ones. Next comes
a silver rating for products that meet the required criteria and at least
half the optional ones. Those that meet the required criteria and fewer than
half the optional ones get a bronze rating. But the rating system need not
remain static.
“EPEAT has a built-in mechanism to escalate the system,” says Jeff Omelchuk,
EPEAT’s program manager and director of the GEC. “As the industry moves
forward, purchasers’ expectations will continue to grow. Although there is no
platinum level, there someday could be.”
The criteria mostly covers equipment design and construction. Besides RoHS
compliance, manufacturers must at least report—and preferably reduce—the
amount of mercury used in display-panel light sources. Other materials such as
hexavalent chromium and certain flame retardants should also be eliminated or at
least reduced to levels far below those allowed under RoHS and other
European directives. IEEE Std. 1680 also covers the use of recyclable plastics such
as those made from plant sugars and oils rather than petrochemicals.
Only reusable or recyclable materials should be used. Equipment should be
built to simplify recycling—with enclosures, as well as circuit boards and
components containing hazardous materials, easily removable. The manufacturer
should clearly identify materials that are hazardous or require special
handling, and it should label plastics with their international resin-identification
codes. The larger parts of enclosures should be composed of only one type of
plastic, and metal inserts molded or glued into plastic should be easy to
remove. Paints and coatings incompatible with recycling or reuse should not be
used.
To prolong service life, products must carry extendable warranties or service
agreements, and be upgradable with common tools. They also should comply
with Energy Star power consumption requirements in effect or soon to be in
effect at the time of certification.
Manufacturers should provide take-back service for the products and their
rechargeable batteries, and recycling organizations should be audited for
compliance. Makers of certified products must demonstrate an environmental policy
consistent with the International Standards Organization 14001 standard and
meet certain reporting requirements, with optional third-party verification of
environmental management systems.
Producing EPEAT-compliant products will initially add to design and
construction costs but, Elwood says, standards should help make green construction
commonplace. “For most manufacturers, it doesn’t make sense to run a bunch of
processes when making similar products,” she says. As computer makers change
their products and processes for the institutional market, individual
consumers are likely to wind up with more eco-friendly computers as well.
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