Thursday, December 17, 2015

W.I.S.E W.E.E.E – Green Environmental Technology


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.