Basel Convention Amendment Confusion

Not posting that I am certain about the meanings of "green list" (Annex IX B) and red list (A) is all sorted out, but hey I acknowledge that Jim Puckett is still a player.

There is extreme confusion now about Prior Informed Consent (PIC) of green-listed engineered plastic. Some companies that pay e-stewards a general allowance money are calling ABS and HiPS as mixed plastics, other buyers are paying top dollar for greenlisted engineer-grade plastics, especially during Hormuz oil spikes.

It appears that those lobbying for electronics plastics (ABS and HiPS) to be taken off the green list despite their meeting the definition of sorted plastic destined for direct recycling has to do with brominated flame retardants.

Electronics companies often use brominated or phosphorus-based flame retardants to meet voluntary, market-driven flammability standards, such as those set by UL Solutions (formerly Underwriters Laboratories), rather than complying with a mandatory federal, law. So if there is a demand for brominated flame retardants, then it is actually an added value component of the resin. One plastic recycling operation we visited in Indonesia actually recycled computer monitor housings into new computer monitor housings in the same factory.

The alternative, apparently, is either to use Japanese technology to capture back the flame retardants in a process similar to freon recovery and then - sell it to the plastics industry to put into new electronics plastic sold under the UL standard. Or dispose of the recycled content and make electronics with brand new plastic and brand new, mined and refined, bromine.