ISSUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

EDITORS: R.E. HESTER AND R.M. HARRISON

27
Electronic Waste Management
Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview

Martin Goosey

1 Introduction 1
2 WEEE – The Scale of the Problem 4
3 Legislative Influences on Electronics
Recycling 4
3.1 Producer Responsibility Legislation 4
3.2 The WEEE Directive 6
3.3 The RoHS Directive 7
3.4 Other Examples of Legislation 8
4 Treatment Options for WEEE 10
5 Material Composition of WEEE 11
6 Socio-economic Factors 13
7 Logistics of WEEE 15
8 WEEE – the International Perspective 18
8.1 European Perspective 18
8.2 Japan 20
9 Barriers to Recycling of WEEE 24
10 The Recycling Hierarchy and Markets
for Recyclate 25
11 WEEE Health and Safety Implications 30
12 Future Factors That May Influence Electronic
Waste Management 35
13 Summary and Conclusions 37
References and Further Reading 37

Issues in Environmental Science and Technology, 27

Electronic Waste Management
Edited by R.E. Hester and R.M. Harrison
r Royal Society of Chemistry 2009
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, www.rsc.org

vii
viii Contents
Chapter 2 Materials Used in Manufacturing Electrical and Electronic
Products
Gary C. Stevens and Martin Goosey

1 Perspective 40
2 Impact of Legislation on Materials Used in Electronics 40
2.1 Overview 40
2.2 The RoHS Directive and Proscribed Materials 42
3 Where do RoHS Proscribed Materials Occur? 44
3.1 Lead 44
3.2 Brominated Flame Retardants 44
3.3 Cadmium, Mercury and Hexavalent Chromium 45
4 Soldering and the Move to Lead-free Assembly 46
4.1 Introduction 46
4.2 Lead-free Solder Choices 46
5 Printed Circuit Board Materials 47
5.1 Introduction 47
5.2 PCB Materials 48
5.3 Provision of Flame Retardancy in PCBs 50
5.4 Non-ferrous and Precious Metals 52
6 Encapsulants of Electronic Components 53
7 Indium Tin Oxide and LCD Screens 54
8 Polymeric Materials in Enclosures, Casings and Panels 55
8.1 Product-related Plastic Content 55
9 WEEE Engineering Thermoplastics 59
9.1 Polycarbonate (PC) 59
9.2 ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) 61
9.3 High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) 62
9.4 Polyphenyleneoxide (PPO) 62
9.5 PC/ABS Blends 62
9.6 Flame Retardants in Engineering Thermoplastics 63
10 Materials Composition of WEEE 65
10.1 Introduction 65
10.2 Mobile Phones 66
10.3 Televisions 68
10.4 Washing Machines 71
11 Conclusions 72
References 73

Chapter 3 Dumping, Burning and Landfill

Ian Holmes

1 Introduction 75
1.1 England: Site Inputs 2002–2003 77
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1.2 Waste Inputs to Different Management Options
in 2005 77
2 Landfill 77
2.1 Historical 77
2.2 Pollution from Landfills 79
2.3 Landfill Gas 79
2.4 Leachate 79
2.5 Landfill-site Construction 80
3 Burning 82
3.1 Historical 82
3.2 Incineration 82
3.3 Mass Burn 82
3.4 Energy Recovery/Energy from
Waste (EFW) 83
3.5 Advanced Thermal Processing 84
3.6 Pollution from Incineration 85
4 Legislation Summary 88
4.1 Current UK Legislation 88
References 89

Chapter 4 Recycling and Recovery

Darren Kell

1 Introduction 91
2 Separation and Sorting 92
3 Treatment 92
3.1 Mixed WEEE 93
3.2 Refrigeration Equipment 95
3.3 Cathode Ray Tubes 96
3.4 Individual Processes 97
4 Outputs and Markets 102
4.1 Metals 103
4.2 Glass 103
4.3 Plastics 103
5 Emerging Technologies 104
5.1 Separation 104
5.2 Thermal Treatments 105
5.3 Hydrometallurgical Extraction 106
5.4 Sensing Technologies 106
5.5 Plastics to Liquid Fuel 107
5.6 Plastics Containing Brominated Flame
Retardents 107
6 Acknowledgements 108
References 108
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Chapter 5 Integrated Approach to e-Waste Recycling
Rod Kellner

1 Introduction 111
2 Recycling and Recovery Technologies 113
2.1 Sorting/Disassembly 114
2.2 Crushing/Diminution 115
2.3 Separation 115
3 Emerging Recycling and Recovery Technologies 117
3.1 Automated Disassembly 117
3.2 Comminution 117
3.3 Separation 118
3.4 Thermal Treatments 119
3.5 Hydrometallurgical Extraction 119
3.6 Dry Capture Technologies 119
3.7 Biotechnological Capture 119
3.8 Sensing Technologies 120
3.9 Design for Recycling and Inverse
Manufacturing 120
4 Printed Circuit Boards 121
4.1 Overview 121
4.2 Recycling 124
4.3 Current Disposal Hierarchy 126
4.4 Economics of Recycling 127
4.5 Future Developments 128
4.6 Characteristics of PCB Scrap 129
4.7 Emerging Technologies 132
5 Sector-based Eco-design 141
5.1 Disassembly 142
5.2 Fasteners 143
5.3 RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification Tags) 145
5.4 Active Disassembly 146
5.5 Design Methodology and Resource Efficiency 147
5.6 Recycling 147
5.7 Constraints on Materials Selection 148
5.8 Eco-design Guidelines for Manufacturing 150
References 160

Chapter 6 European Recycling Platform (ERP): a Pan-European

Solution to WEEE Compliance
Scott Butler

1 Brief Introduction to WEEE 161

1.1 The WEEE Directive 161
1.2 Producer Responsibility 162
1.3 Household and Non-household WEEE 162
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1.4 Marking EEE Products 163
1.5 WEEE Collection Points 164
1.6 Product Categories and Waste Streams 164
1.7 Producer Compliance Schemes 164
1.8 Variations in National WEEE Laws 164
2 Introduction to European Recycling Platform (ERP) 165
2.1 European Recycling Platform 165
2.2 Founder Members 165
2.3 Timeline 165
2.4 Founding Principles 166
2.5 Structure 166
2.6 Scope of services 168
2.7 The Operational Model – General
Contractor Approach 168
2.8 Euro PLUS 170
3 ERP in Operation 170
3.1 Country Summaries 170
3.2 Key Performance Indicators 170
3.3 Members 170
4 ERP – Beyond Compliance 172
4.1 Implementation of Individual Producer
Responsibility (IPR) 172
4.2 ERP UK WEEE Survey 173
5 Summary 175
5.1 Key Achievements 175
5.2 Final Thoughts: Interviews with Two
Founding Members 177
References 179

Chapter 7 Liquid Crystal Displays: from Devices to Recycling

Avtar S. Matharu and Yanbing Wu

1 Introduction 180
2 Overview of Liquid Crystals 183
2.1 Definition and Classification of Liquid Crystals 184
2.2 Molecular and Chemical Architecture of
Liquid Crystals 185
2.3 The Mesophase: Types of Intermediate State
of Matter 186
2.4 Physical Properties of Liquid Crystals and
Material Requirements 188
3 Overview of Liquid Crystal Displays Based on
Nematic Mesophase 190
3.1 Basic LCD Operating Principles 190
3.2 Types of Electro-optic LCD Devices 191
4 LCD Manufacturing Process 195
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5 Environmental Legislation and Lifecycle Analysis 197
5.1 The WEEE Directive and LCDs 197
5.2 RoHS and REACH 199
5.3 Far East Environmental Measures 199
5.4 Lifecycle Analysis 199
6 Potentially Hazardous Constituents: Toxicity
of LCD Constituents 201
6.1 Toxicity of Mercury and Backlighting 201
6.2 Toxicity of Liquid-crystal Mixture 203
6.3 Demanufacture and Recycling 204
7 Future Outlook 208
7.1 LCD Panels 208
7.2 Smart Disassembly 209
7.3 Legislation 209
References 209

Chapter 8 The Role of Collective versus Individual Producer

Responsibility in e-Waste Management: Key Learnings
from Around the World
Mark Dempsey and Kirstie McIntyre

1 Introduction 212
1.1 E-waste and Its Environmental Impacts 212
1.2 Background to Producer Responsibility 213
1.3 Defining Individual and Collective Producer
Responsibility 215
2 The WEEE Directive in Europe 216
2.1 The WEEE Directive’s Approach to Individual
and Collective Producer Responsibility 216
2.2 Implementation of Individual and Collective
Producer Responsibility in the EU 218
2.3 ICT Milieu, The Netherlands 219
3 E-waste Laws and Voluntary Agreements in Other
Countries 220
3.1 Japanese Electronics Take-back Directive 220
3.2 Product Take-back in the USA 221
3.3 Product Stewardship in Australia 222
4 Discussion 223
4.1 Competition in E-Waste Management 223
4.2 Collective Producer Responsibility: Benefits and
Disadvantages 225
4.3 Individual Producer Responsibility: Benefits and
Disadvantages 225
4.4 Evaluating Collective versus Individual Producer
Responsibility 227
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5 Recommendations to Implement IPR 230
5.1 Recommendation #1: Ensure Article 8.2 of the
WEEE Directive is Fully Transposed 230
5.2 Recommendation #2: Adopt a Phased Approach
to IPR 231
5.3 Recommendation #3: Member States to
Implement IPR 232
6 Conclusions 233
References 234

Chapter 9 Rapid Assessment of Electronics Enclosure Plastics

Patrick J. Baird, Henryk Herman and Gary C. Stevens

1 Introduction 236
2 Instrumental Techniques 237
3 Visible-NIR Spectroscopy of Engineering
Thermoplastics 239
3.1 Discrimination of Enclosure Materials 241
3.2 Base Polymer Identification 243
3.3 Selected Thermoplastics for Processing 244
3.4 Controlled Degradation Experiments 245
3.5 Analysis of Processed Thermoplastics 245
4 Analysis of Plastics Containing Flame-retardant
Additives 248
4.1 Visible-NIR Spectroscopy 249
4.2 X-Ray Fluorescence and Optical Emission
Spectroscopy 251
4.3 Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy 253
5 Conclusions 255
References 256

Subject Index 258