An
Ateliere Fara Frontiere project, in association with the SINTEF group,
co-financed
by Norway grants through the Green Industry Innovation Programme for Romania,
operated by Innovation Norway
Today, there is more gold in people’s drawers
than in the world’s goldmines. At international level, experts talk about a
true war for resources and raw materials.
On the other hand, the vast and ever
increasing use of personal computers, laptops and tablets does and will create
a great amount of electronic waste (that’s W.E.E.E, Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment) with many critical and valuable elements, rare metals and
rare earth that are needed and can be re-processed in the industry (iron, copper,
gold, platinum, selenium, aluminium, nickel, palladium, tantalum, etc.).
Unfortunately,
adequate recovery of these elements from electronic waste is not achieved yet. Many
of the critical metals and rare earths are reported to have total end-of-life
recycling rates of less than 1%.
The W.I.S.E W.E.E.E project aims to prove that
it is possible and important to keep maximum value and engineering locally, to
support the local and labour market, not to send most of the value abroad. It
has two main objectives:
-
to improve the material efficiency and waste
management through the development of new products based on recycled e-waste at
Ateliere Fara Frontiere, and a more efficient and responsible use of natural
resources and the retrieval of valuable secondary materials. That’s wise.
-
To create new
positive and green jobs, organizing a new recycling work unit to provide social
added value along with economical value: a good support for empowerment, giving
basic skills and general abilities necessary for a sustainable professional
integration. That’s W.I.S.E, Work Integration Social Enterprise.
Within the project, Ateliere Fara Frontiere has provided SINTEF with
representative samples from separate computer parts. The samples have been
chemically analyzed and the content and nature of the valuable materials have
been estimated. Based on the results the most valuable parts have been
selected, and a thorough literature survey has been produced by SINTEF, describing
the most feasible and simple process to recycle those specific parts.
OUTCOMES
Results gained from the chemical analysis show that several components
of e-waste are interesting and represent a great potential for critical
materials recovery. The main focus here should be placed at dismantling of Hard
Disc Drives (HDD) for separate recycling of the consisting components which
include PCBs, magnet brackets, magnets, casing, cover, etc. and for extraction
of tantalum capacitors from other kinds of PCBs (motherboards, optical drives,
etc.).
To recover critical metals (precious metals, tantalum, rare earth
elements) protect resources it is recommended that PCs, laptops and tablets
should be manually disassembled to the greatest extent possible. Besides the
legally stipulated detoxification (removal of the display and batteries), the
assembled motherboard and potentially the PCBs for the drive and hard disks
should be removed and fed into a suitable recycling process.
STAKEHOLDERS
ATELIERE FARA FRONTIERE (AFF) is a romanian Non Profit Organisation, based on the Work Integration
Social Enterprise (WISE) model. The organisation's purpose is to create jobs
for disadvantaged people, and prepare them for social and professional
integration on the labour market. In the Bucharest Work Integration workshop,
launched in 2009, we have hired more than 150 people in difficulty who have
been working or still work within our three production units, which are all
related to waste management (WEEE, advertizing waste, organic waste).
The SINTEF Group is the largest independent contract research organization in Scandi
navia with more than 2000 employees, of which the SINTEF Foundation has approximately
1200. Our fields of research are technology, natural science, medicine and
social science. Contracts for industry and the public sector generated more
than 90%of the income. SINTEF collaborates closely with Norwegian University of
Science and Technology (NTNU).The co-operation is characterized by mutual use
of personnel, laboratories and equipment. SINTEF Materials and Chemistry - a
research division within the SINTEF Group - is heavily involved in, and puts strategic
emphasis on sustainable recycling and recovery of waste.
NORWAY GRANTS, INNOVATION NORWAY and the Green
Industry Innovation Programme
The WISE WEEE project is financed through the Norwegian Financial
Mechanism (Norway Grants), contributing to reduce economic and social disparities
and to strengthening bilateral relations between Romania and Norway. The grant
value amount for the project is of 175.000 euro, on a 199.533 euro overall
budget. The project duration has been 15 months, from september 2014 to
december 2015.
The objective of the Programme is to increase competitiveness of green
enterprises, including greening of existing industries, green innovation and
green entrepreneurship. The programme strategy is in line with Romanian
national policies. The expected outcome of the Programme is realisation of
business opportunities of greening the European economy.
The Green Industry Innovation Programme for Romania is operated by
Innovation Norway, a public company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade
and Industry and all the Norwegian County Municipalities. The Programme content
has been developed in consultation with the National Focal Point (ministry of
European Funds) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business Environment.