Friday, October 31, 2008

November 1st - New Energy Star Compliant TVs Hit the Market

Consumers will be able to buy televisions meeting the EPA´s new, more comprehensive energy efficiency specifications starting Nov. 1.

Televisions that meet the new Energy Star specification will be up to 30% more energy efficient than conventional models, according to the agency. If all televisions sold in the United States met the new Energy Star requirements, the savings in energy costs would grow to $1 billion annually and greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by the equivalent of about 1 million cars, according to the EPA.

The new specification requires energy efficiency when televisions are on as well as off or in "standby" mode. It also requires the use of external power supplies that have earned the Energy Star label where applicable.

An up-to-date list of models that meet the new specification is available at www.energystar.gov/ia/products/prod_lists/tv_vcr_prod_list.pdf

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Source: Waste News, October 31, 2008

New EPA Guidelines for Electronics Recycling Operations

The U.S. EPA has developed a new guide for electronics recyclers on how to run safe and environmentally protective recycling operations.

The agency developed the ·Responsible Recycling (R2) Practices for Use in Accredited Certification Programs for Electronics Recyclersö to promote better environmental, worker safety, and public health practices for electronics recyclers.

The R2 guide lists 13 principles to help electronics recyclers ensure their material is handled safely and legally in the U.S. and foreign countries, according to the EPA. It calls on recyclers to establish a management system for environmental and worker safety, develop a policy that promotes reuse and material recovery over landfill or incineration, and use practices that reduce exposures or emissions during recycling operations. The principles also call for recyclers to use diligence to assure appropriate management of materials throughout the recycling chain, including materials that are exported to foreign countries.

Details are available at: www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/r2practices.htm

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Source: Waste News, Oct. 31, 2008

Monday, October 13, 2008

EPA Rules For Everyone to Recycle Hazardous Secondary Materials Instead of Disposing of Them as Waste

Oct. 10 -- U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson signed a final rule Oct. 7 that will encourage businesses to recycle hazardous secondary materials instead of disposing of them as waste.

The new rule streamlines the regulation of these materials, mostly certain manufacturing byproducts and residues, and excludes them from hazardous waste regulations while limiting the eligibility to materials that are legitimately recycled, according to the EPA.

Numerous safeguards are being put in place, and the exclusion will not apply to materials that sent for disposal or burned for energy, according to the EPA.

Regardless, the Solid Waste Association of North America is warning its members operating landfills to carefully screen incoming waste to be certain no hazardous materials slip into the waste stream because of the rule change.

Details about the rule change are available online at www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/dsw/index.htm

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Source: WasteNews.com, Oct. 10 http://www.wastenews.com/headlines2.html?id=1223644670&allowcomm=true

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Printed Wiring Board Value Drops Again


The gross value of printed wiring board scrap in September 2008 hit its lowest price in over a year, at $3.98 per pound. Though down 11.5 percent from the August figure, the price was up 5.9 percent when compared to September 2007. The average value of board scrap for the first three quarters of the year was $4.58 per pound, a 28.1-percent improvement over the same period last year.

This data represents the full metallic values of boards over time and are not the recycling values, as those values do not include the costs involved in actually extracting metal from boards, including freight, sampling charges, assay assessments, smelting, refining, process loss, return on investment, and penalties for various elements, including beryllium, bismuth and nickel.
These values are for the estimated intrinsic metal content of recovered PC boards. Some consumers label such material as mid-value. Lower-value scrap includes monitor and television boards. Higher-value scrap includes network and video cards, and motherboards.
The March 2008 printed-wiring board value, at $5.03 per pound, was the highest in almost seven years, with the lowest, at $1.62 per pound, in November 2001.
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Source: E-Scrap News 10/08/2008

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Will the New Green Chemistry Initiative Influence the Amount of e-Waste?

Sacramento, Calif. — Earlier this week, California became the first state to enact a green chemistry program when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the AB 1879 and SB 509 bills into law that call for the reduction or elimination of hazardous chemicals in products and the environment.

"The Green Chemistry Initiative is a 180-degree shift in how the chemical industry is regulated in the United States," said Peter Hsiao, a member of the Environmental and Cleantech practices at law firm Morrison & Foerster in Los Angeles, in a statement. He currently serves on the Standing Committee on Environmental Law for the American Bar Association, and is the former Chair of the California State Bar Environmental Law Section. "The state intends to make businesses show that their use and disposal of chemicals is safe, signifying a paradigm shift where companies essentially ask for permission, not forgiveness, when introducing chemicals into the stream of commerce. It may be the most far-reaching chemical regulatory law in the U.S."

Hsiao said the initiative's impact on businesses will be immediate. "Since the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control will be granted statutory authority to promulgate rules regarding the regulation of chemicals by January 2011, many manufacturers will now have to be prepared to revamp not only their products' design and production plans, but also their sales and marketing approaches," he stated.

AB 1879 establishes authority for the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to develop regulations that create a process for identifying and prioritizing chemicals of concern and to create methods for analyzing alternatives to existing hazardous chemicals. It also allows DTSC to take certain actions following an assessment that range from "no action" to "restrictions or bans."
SB 509 creates an online Toxics Information Clearinghouse, a web-based database, to increase consumer knowledge about the toxicity and hazards of thousands of chemicals used in California.

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Source: DTSC News 10/03/2008

Data Center Problems - Studies Done

In this age of increasing server heat loads, proper cooling of server racks is a new challenge for data center managers. The key to reliable cooling in a data center is to meet the cooling air requirement of each server rack and to ensure an acceptable inlet temperature. There are many cooling solutions available, and choosing the right one that meets the practical and budgetary restrictions is not always easy.

A recent Gartner study has revealed that most IT users are lacking the complete picture when it comes to environmentally friendly technology and how best to pursue a greener future. In this study, Gartner offers an outline for the immediate, midterm, and long-term issues to keep in mind. According to the research firm, some of the immediate green IT concerns should include looking into advance cooling technologies and use of modeling and monitoring software. Some midterm issues to focus on over the next two to five years include green IT procurement, videoconferencing, green legislation in data centers, and corporate social responsibility programs. Long-term goals should include carbon offsetting and carbon trading, data center heat recycling, alternative energy sources, and green building design.

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Source: Processor.com. 09/26/2008

Increase Your Rate of Electronics Recycling

onger remains on the premises. Yet the importance of properly disposing of and recycling storage tape and other electronics media is not something that CTOs, admins, and others in the IT field necessarily thinking about a lot.

Unfortunately, though, making sure all electronics equipment is properly disposed of is something that merits a lot of concern. Breaking environmental laws, for example, can lead to civil penalties and, in some cases, criminal prosecution. Security risks for which admins can be liable are vast, yet many enterprises are unaware of what is at stake. Most executives in large US firms, for example, are unaware of the risks involved with not heeding environmental laws and the costs of proper electronics disposal, according to a survey by HP Financial Services, the leasing and financial services subsidiary of HP.

Then there are the environmental concerns of tape and electronics waste disposal. According to US EPA statics, about 235 million units of electronics products sold between 1980 and 2007 had accumulated in storage as of 2007. Electronics recycling is starting to have an effect on eliminating the amount of the waste that ends up in landfills now that several states have passed legislation mandating recycling. But while the percentage of electronics recycling is increasing, the EPA says, the recycling rate only increased to 18% from 2006 to 2007.


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Source: Processor.com. 09/26/2008

Friday, October 3, 2008

Raident Technology Has Partnered Up With Cimelia

Cimelia is one of Raident Technology's partners. Located in Singapore, Cimelia handles electronic waste, or e-waste. It mines a treasure trove of precious metals from what is seen as junk.

Buried in everyday electronics, such as computers, are minute amounts of precious metals such as gold and palladium on the circuitry. A recycler extracts these metals using chemicals and casts them into bars, to be sold to jewellers or, in the case of industrial metals such as silver and copper, to manufacturers.

Said Seow, with a chuckle: “Other people mine gold from underground, we mine above ground from e-waste.”

Her company has more than 10 contracts with multinational manufacturers, who ship their waste from as far as Brazil and Europe to Singapore to be recycled at Cimelia's plant. It can handle up to 500kg of gold production a year.

Seow estimates that, on average, 1kg of gold can be recovered from about five tonnes of trash, which may be discarded personal computers, office photocopiers or sub-quality printed circuit boards.

Here is how it's done. The discards arrive from Cimelia's 17 collection centres worldwide. They are sorted according to the metals in them and then stripped for components.
Cimelia does not recycle plastics, which are sold to other recyclers.

The metal parts are then fed into a conveyor-belt crusher, which chews the bits into flecks. These are tipped into tanks of corrosive chemicals, which separate the metals. The metals are melted and cast into bars.
Each 1kg gold bar is worth about S$22,000 (RM49,000).

But beyond the gold, there are environmental and business considerations.
Dr Frank Montabon, an assistant professor at Iowa University, who has worked with companies in the United States on their recycling practices, said manufacturers saved on landfill fees and derived revenue from selling their scrap.

One-stop recyclers such as Cimelia also helped manufacturers, as one of their main difficulties was having to deal with different companies at each phase of recycling, said Harriet Green, president of Arrow Asia Pacific, a large distributor of semiconductor components in Asia.
The promise in the business has attracted companies such as Florida-based Technology Conservation Group and SembCorp Environment to set up recycling plants here.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Raident Technology's Scholarship Receiver Goes to NY 2008 Fashion Show

Mike Feeney's Corset, NY Fall 2008 Show


Mike Feeney, one of the Raident Technology scholarship receivers, went to the New York Fashion Week Show (Sept. 7th). To see some of his art work as well as other Academy of Arts artists' work please visit:
http://www.mercedesbenzfashionweek.com/newyork/spring2009/designers/academy_of_art_university/index.html

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Quote of the Day: October 1, 2008

Natalia Kleschevnikova, Quality Management and Environmental Compliance: "We are very excited about having this blog. From now on Raident Technology will be able to communicate environmental, industry, and our company news to our clients, readers and general public."

New Chemistry Bills Signed in California

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two bills into law that will give state regulators broad authority to identify, evaluate and, if necessary, ban potentially harmful industrial chemicals.

A.B. 1879 and S.B. 509 establish the framework for a comprehensive "green chemistry" program to reduce or eliminate toxic substances in consumer products and the environment. A.B. 1879 gives the California Department of Toxic Substances Control authority, for the first time, to regulate chemicals in consumer products. The department has until January 1, 2011 to develop a science-based program to identify and prioritize chemicals of concern and analyze alternatives to the chemicals. The bill also requires the establishment of a Green Ribbon Science Panel to advise the department.

The companion bill S.B. 509 requires establishment of an online Toxics Information Clearinghouse to increase consumer knowledge about the toxicity and hazards of everyday chemicals. It also requires the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to develop, through a public process, hazard traits and environmental and toxicological endpoints for the clearinghouse.

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Source: Skin, Inc. News 10/01/2008

Data Breach Notification Coming to the Europe

Deputy Data Protection Supervisor Joaquin Bayo Delgado gave the keynote presentation at the NAID-Europe/PRISM Conference last week. He forecasted that it is a matter of time before the EU adopts legislation that will require organizations to notify citizens when their personal information had been subject to a data breach. It was this type of legislation, first adopted in California, having now spread across the country and many other developed nations, that has been a major in heightened information protection practices over the last 5 years.

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Source: NAID News 9/18/2008