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Fuse industry takes a WEEE lead in recycling01 September 2004By John Bassford, Product Manager, Fuses and Fused Products, Eaton MEMThe European Directive on Waste of Electrical & Electronic Equipment (The WEEE Directive) and the Restrictions on the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive come into force in August of this year and must be implemented by August 2005 and July 2006 respectively.
Happily, the responsibilities for panel builders are relatively few compared with those for electrical equipment manufacturers, wholesalers and end-users. Eaton MEM is both a manufacturer of fuses and
fused products and a panel builder offering modular panelboards and complete factory-built assemblies in
ratings up to 10,000A.
While much of manufacturing industry is still grappling with the demands of the WEEE Directive, two sectors are well advanced. British fuse manufacturers, through a BEAMA initiative, are about to launch a scheme to collect and recycle fuse products while the Lighting Industry Federation has a programme for the
collection and recycling of gas discharge lamps.
Panel builders should take advantage of the BEAMA scheme when disposing of fuses that have blown during testing of panels. They should also take advantage of the LIF scheme to dispose of tubular fluorescent lamps and high intensity discharge lamps used on their premises.
Around 90%, or 6 million tonnes, of electrical and electronic waste is disposed of in landfill sites in Europe every year. The WEEE Directive aims to see as much as 80% of this recycled in environmentally-compatible processes.
Every tonne of fuse-links contains approximately 220kg of copper. To extract the same quantity of copper from the ground would require, on average, 100 tonnes of raw ore. In addition, each tonne of recycled fuse-links will yield 2.5kg of silver.
Analysis of the total cost of recycling fuse-links under the BEAMA initiative has indicated that there should be a small net profit which, it is anticipated, will be donated to an appropriate charity. The WEEE Directive will become a National Standard in member states in August 2004. Countries then have until August 2005 to set up a free collection and recycling system for ten categories of electrical and electronic equipment.
Fuses do not feature in this list but European manufacturers, through Pro-Fuse International and similar bodies, are co-operating to establish effective recycling programmes in line with the objectives of the WEEE Directive. British fuse manufacturers, led by Eaton MEM, Cooper Bussmann and Lawson Fuses, have collaborated in setting up the UK scheme.
In parallel with the WEEE Directive, the Restrictions on the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive also comes into force in August 2004 and must be implemented by July 2006. Producers must record the presence of such materials and set up procedures to recover them and remove them from the
public domain. They must also devise means to replace these substances by non-hazardous alternatives.
In the case of fuse-links, this applies to substances such as lead, chromium, cadmium and certain halogenides which have historically been used in fuses. In procedures are already well established.
It is incumbent upon the “supplier” (ie. manufacturers and distributors) to arrange for the free collection and
recycling of electrical and electronic equipment. This involves setting up collection points for the different
products, typically at wholesalers’ premises and with major users such as utilities, local authorities, major
industrial sites etc., to enable the products to be returned for recycling. Panel builders will not normally be
required to provide such facilities.
The BEAMA initiative follows a similar one in Germany where more than 150 tonnes of fuselinks are already
recycled every year under the NH/HH-Recycling scheme.
Under the British scheme, pallets will be placed at strategic locations, for example on wholesalers’ premises. Arrangements will be made with a transport company to collect these pallets and transport them to the recycling plant.
Recycling is not restricted to the products of the participating manufacturers because the scheme is self-financing. The nature of the fuse-link lends itself to environmentallycompatible recycling because physical
dismantling and separation of components is not necessary. The participating manufacturers will identify their products with an environmentallycompatible recycling symbol similar to that used by their German counterparts.
Copper, which makes up about 26% of the content, and silver (0.1%) are readily recovered by smelting. The major constituents are the ceramic body (40%) and the silica sand filler (21%) which form a slag suitable for road-building. Other metals, principally iron and steel, will be bound up in this slag.
The German NH/HH-Recycling scheme for fuse-links was set up in 1995 by a group of German fuse manufacturers working in association with the German trade association ZVEI.
Different methods of separating the various components were examined. Manual dismantling was already in use but proved costly. Shredding or crushing followed by melting in a blast furnace also proved costly.
Smelting proved the simplest, most cost-effective, solution. It allows fuselinks to be processed directly without any prior dismantling or crushing. Smelting would normally require the addition of quartz sand to promote slagging but the fuse-links already contain sand so this is not necessary. The fuse-links also include a small amount of plastics, which provided it is no more than 3.5%, can be utilised to produce heat.
The German manufacturers identify their fuse-links with a distinctive ‘NH’ or ‘HH’ symbol for low and high voltage HRC fuses respectively, to indicate that they are suitable for environmentally-compatible recycling.
Used fuse-links are collected in “egg box” pallets at the various collection points. The operator notifies the
transport company when these are full and the pallets are collected within three days for transportation to a “buffer store” and replaced by empty pallets. When sufficient quantities of used fuse-links have accumulated at the buffer store, they are delivered to the smelter for processing.
Approximately 116 tonnes of fuse-links were recycled in 2001 and 166 tonnes in 2002. However the annual production of used fuse-links in Germany is estimated as 1400 tonnes, so there is still ample scope for expansion of the scheme.
British fuse manufacturers introduce approximately 200 tonnes of fuse-links into the marketplace each year. Whilst this is much lower than the German figure, the potential for environmentally-compatible
recycling of used fuse-links is still attractive. The manufacturers confidently expect the collection and
recycling scheme to be in place in the next few months, well ahead of the August 2005 deadline.
John Bassford is President of Pro-Fuse International, an international organisation comprising prominent manufacturers of fuse-links and load-break switches whose objective is to disseminate information on protective devices to enable manufacturers and end-users to make informed decisions on the most appropriate protective devices to meet their needs.
Educated at Liverpool University, he has spent most of his working life involved with fuse-based products. He is a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (MIEE) and sits on a number of BEAMA Installation committees. Contact Details and Archive...Most Viewed Articles... |
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