Readers may recall that a journalist confirmed one of my theses about Guiyu, China. There had to be something else going on besides "aqua regia" (using acid to recover gold), or it would not be financially viable for Guiyu to import PCs. Sure enough, similar to the cell phone chip reuse documented at TechTravels, there was chip harvesting and reuse going on. That's a huge savings compared to mining.
The river in Guiyu is polluted from textile dying mills in the area, but we don't want to understate the pollution coming from circuit board residuals. It can be pretty nasty.
You could almost make the case that Guiyu is internalizing the pollution that is being diverted from the mining communities, i.e. make the case for Chinese altruism. But can fair trade recycling find a way to incentivize Guiyu to maintain chip harvesting and reuse without shouldering the pollution of the residuals?
Circuits that come apart in water may allow the chips to be reused more safely.
The developed technology lends itself readily to rigid, flexible and 3D structures, which will enable the electronics industry to pursue new design philosophies - with the emphasis on using less materials and improving sustainability.
Who is the loser when chips get reused? If they don't work, the consumer loses. But consumers don't buy chips, small manufacturers do, and they generally don't want to build an entire new device around a bad chip.
The large manufacturers can lose in two ways. If the chip is swapped into a new device and the new chip is stolen, or it's swapped in by a small contract manufacturer who calculates that they won't get caught if the "warranty returns" stay below 5% or some other number, then the OEM could conceivably have a part failure under warranty which they'd have a right to complain about.
But the OEMs can also be upset by "market cannibalization", i.e. legitimate reuse which undermines "planned obsolescence" and replacement sales.
My belief that the latter influences manufacturers is built in part by the participation of ink cartridge makers in the AGMA (anti-gray-market-alliance) and in part by the Chinese CRT
How do you fight something like reuse?
How did Edison try to stop Alternating Current? Watching History Channel tonight, the stories of Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Edison, Westinghouse, etc. And Nicola Tesla, Serbian-American, whose pioneering work led to the cathode ray gun. There was a tremendous amount of bad-mouthing, scare tactics, fear-mongering over "AC", fear of electricity sewn by kerosene sellers.... It looks kind of like the "e-waste" industry describing each other.
It would be really cool if electronics were made so that you could sell the chips, caps, heat sinks, and capacitors after soaking the circuit boards in water. But the first thing is to convince environmentalists in the USA and Europe that these things really are being harvested and reused by people who cannot yet afford our "throwaway society" lifestyle.
The river in Guiyu is polluted from textile dying mills in the area, but we don't want to understate the pollution coming from circuit board residuals. It can be pretty nasty.
You could almost make the case that Guiyu is internalizing the pollution that is being diverted from the mining communities, i.e. make the case for Chinese altruism. But can fair trade recycling find a way to incentivize Guiyu to maintain chip harvesting and reuse without shouldering the pollution of the residuals?
Circuits that come apart in water may allow the chips to be reused more safely.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), along with partners In2Tec Ltd (UK) and Gwent Electronic Materials Ltd, have developed a printed circuit board (PCB) whose components can be easily separated by immersion in hot water. The work was part of the ReUSE project, funded by the UK government's Technology Strategy Board.
Recyclable electronics: just add hot water
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), along with partners In2Tec Ltd (UK) and Gwent Electronic Materials Ltd, have developed a printed circuit board (PCB) whose components can be easily separated by immersion in hot water. The work was part of the ReUSE project, funded by the UK government's Technology Strategy Board.
Recycling this printed circuit board is as easy as
making a cup of tea - simply add hot water, and
the bonding material dissolves away leaving you
with 90% of your components to re-use as you wish
making a cup of tea - simply add hot water, and
the bonding material dissolves away leaving you
with 90% of your components to re-use as you wish
The Challenge
The electronics industry has a waste problem - currently over 100 million electronic units are discarded annually in the UK alone, making it one of the fastest growing waste streams.
It was estimated in a DTI-funded report, that around 85% of all PCB scrap board waste goes to landfill. Around 70% of this being of non-metallic content with little opportunity for recycling. This amounts to around 1 million tonnes in the UK annually equivalent to 81 x HMS Belfasts.
The Solution
The aim of the ReUSE (Reuseable, Unzippable, Sustainable Electronics) project was to increase the recyclability of electronic assemblies, in order to avoid an ever-growing volume of waste.
The project partners designed, developed and tested a series of unzippable polymeric layers which, while withstanding prolonged thermal cycling and damp heat stressing, allow the assemblies to be easily separated at end-of-life into their constituent parts, after immersion in hot water.
The Impact
This revolutionary materials technology allows a staggering 90% of the original structure to be re-used. For comparison, less than 2% of traditional PCB material can be re-used.
Who is the loser when chips get reused? If they don't work, the consumer loses. But consumers don't buy chips, small manufacturers do, and they generally don't want to build an entire new device around a bad chip.
The large manufacturers can lose in two ways. If the chip is swapped into a new device and the new chip is stolen, or it's swapped in by a small contract manufacturer who calculates that they won't get caught if the "warranty returns" stay below 5% or some other number, then the OEM could conceivably have a part failure under warranty which they'd have a right to complain about.
But the OEMs can also be upset by "market cannibalization", i.e. legitimate reuse which undermines "planned obsolescence" and replacement sales.
My belief that the latter influences manufacturers is built in part by the participation of ink cartridge makers in the AGMA (anti-gray-market-alliance) and in part by the Chinese CRT
How do you fight something like reuse?
How did Edison try to stop Alternating Current? Watching History Channel tonight, the stories of Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Edison, Westinghouse, etc. And Nicola Tesla, Serbian-American, whose pioneering work led to the cathode ray gun. There was a tremendous amount of bad-mouthing, scare tactics, fear-mongering over "AC", fear of electricity sewn by kerosene sellers.... It looks kind of like the "e-waste" industry describing each other.
It would be really cool if electronics were made so that you could sell the chips, caps, heat sinks, and capacitors after soaking the circuit boards in water. But the first thing is to convince environmentalists in the USA and Europe that these things really are being harvested and reused by people who cannot yet afford our "throwaway society" lifestyle.
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