This posting is prompted by the comment Dr. Carl Levoguer, who wrote on
August 11:
>You don't have to worry too much about this application as far as the
European legislation is concerned - military and space applications aren't
covered by the WEEE directive.
I am worried, because I don't think that we have seen the end of the
attempts by environmentalists to restrict the manufacture of electronic
equipment. One environmentalist told me that the goal is to keep "hazardous
materials out of the biosphere." He didn't mention who gets to decide
whether a material is hazardous, and there seems to be little awareness of
trading off risks against loss of performance. Environmentalists seem to
have a very high regard for the ability of technologists to figure out how
to get along without things if they are sufficiently motivated.
How long will it be until we see WEEE(2) with an increased scope and a
longer list of banned materials? If more restrictions are coming, what is
the value of developing new technology today that doesn't take them into
account? In fact, this leadfree forum has been focussed on just one of five
materials that are to be banned by the draft directive, and even for that
one, just as used in solder. I was glad to read Dr. Levoguer's list (August
10) of lead applications that may be exempted from a new draft of the
directive, but there are still cadmium, hexavalent chromium, mercury (a much
smaller issue than the other items), and halogenated flame retardants in
plastic. I can see no sign that their elimination is being addressed.
Perhaps electronics manufacturers are hoping that a good-faith effort on
removing lead from solder will earn them a reprieve from meeting the other
material bans.
Will electronics manufacturers oppose the predicted new restrictions any
more vigorously than they are opposing the present draft directive? A
company takes a significant risk in opposing environmental legislation, no
matter how offensive or lacking in technical basis, because it gets labeled
"anti-environment" or "greedy industrialist" it loses market share. It's
safer just to go along with perceptions and spend money on developing new
technology.
Recently I wrote to one of the authors of the draft directive on WEEE,
seeking to discover the perceived hazards from the five materials that it
would ban. He wrote me a nice reply:
>Welcome to the "environmental movement". As a start to the environmental
problems linked to the waste management of electrical and electronic
equipment I suggest you order the following reports:
>* "Environmental Consequences of Incineration and Landfilling of Waste from
Electr(on)ic Equipment"
>* "Waste from electrical and electronic products - a survey of the contents
of materials and hazardous substances in electric and electronic products"
>
>Contact for both studies: Nordic Council of Ministers
> Store Strandstraede 18
> DK -1255 Copenhagen K
> Fax: +33 96 02 02
>After having studied these reports don't hesitate to contact me directly
with any additional question you might have on the WEEE project.
>
>Regards,
>
>Florian Ermacora [[log in to unmask]]
(I read the reports and am preparing some questions for him now.) The first
of these reports, issued in 1995, was quite enlightening, although it leaves
a lot of unanswered questions. I learned from it that WEEE accounts for only
about one percent of the total solid waste stream. Also, at last I know the
perceived hazard from halogenated flame retardants in plastic.
I also found there a much longer list of "environmentally hazardous
materials and chemical substances" which includes, in addition to the five I
listed above from the WEEE draft directive, copper, nickel, tin (!), zinc,
silver, chromium (not just hexavalent), and antimony. One of the questions
I'd like to ask is "How did the five materials in the WEEE directive get
picked from this list?" It doesn't take a lot of imagination to anticipate
the appearance of at least some of the rest of these in a new WEEE(2).
For those readers of the leadfree listserv who just love a challenge, how
would you like to start working on how to build electronic equipment without
any of the above elements? (Iron, aluminum, and gold are "not considered as
having an environmental impact". Can anyone imagine a lead-free solder that
also doesn't include tin, copper, zinc, or antimony? (There's no mention of
bismuth, but that might well be restricted, not because of its inherent
hazard, but because the only way to get it is to smelt the ores of lead and
silver. There's no mention of indium, either, but God didn't put enough of
that in the earth's crust to meet the need that would develop.) How would
you approach a silver-free, copper-free, nickel-free conductive adhesive -
use gold? How about getting along without stainless steel, because it
contains nickel and chromium? Incidentally, what is the risk to the
environment from stainless steel?
If stainless steel is not a hazard (even though it contains items identified
as hazardous), then why do people think that lead in solder is? (Panasonic
has a very pretty picture of the path from discarded electronics to drinking
water at http://www.mec.panasonic.co.jp/guide/eco/lead-free/e-index.html. I
wrote them two weeks ago to ask them if they had any data to back up the
picture; they haven't responded.) People have been throwing away electronic
equipment containing solder for a very long time. If a case of elevated lead
in drinking water coming from a source near a land fill had been discovered
anywhere in the world, I think we would have heard about it on the evening
news the same day.
Then there's the matter of flux. I thought the readers of this forum might
be interested to know that abietic acid, a natural product derived from pine
sap and the principal ingredient in rosin flux, is listed by the
Environmental Defense Fund (see
http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/summary.tcl?edf_substance_id=514%
2d10%2d3) as "More hazardous than most chemicals in 1 ranking system." Until
I called it to their attention, it was listed in the top 10 percent. But
then, abietic acid doesn't get delivered to the customer, so maybe it won't
be included in the predicted WEEE(2).
Am I wrong to be worried? I hope so. I would welcome reassurances from any
quarter.
Gordon Davy
Northrop Grumman ESSS
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399
The author's views expressed here are not necessarily those of his employer.
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