The principles of suistainability. (Environmentally Speaking).(Brief Article)

The scale of the downturn in our industry, and the number of job losses has been greater than all expectations. Whilst the PCB industry will undoubtedly recover as it has in the past, it will be a different industry that takes us forward. In Europe, the events of the last year have caused an acceleration in the demographic changes already affecting the European PCB industry. For example, the U.K.'s once-thriving board manufacturing environment is expected to continue to move to China and other countries in the Far East.

With the industry facing such major changes, it would not be unreasonable for the PCB industry to have more urgent matters to address than those related to environmental compliance, best practice, and waste minimization. However, despite the fact that we live in difficult times, there is still a considerable amount of interest and activity around environmental best practice in the U.K.'s PCB industry. One of the most important current themes in this area is sustainable development, and the adoption of sustainable approaches to the use of raw materials and resources. Consequently, the PCIF's Environmental Working Group has embraced the principles of sustainability in much of its recent work, including the completion last year of a scoping study identifying and prioritizing key sustainability opportunities for the U.K. PCB industry.

From this study we have highlighted and prioritized key areas that must be addressed, developing several project proposals that will enable us to tackle the key issues. At the time of writing, we are planning to cover five important topics. Specific projects aim to address issues of PCB manufacturing plant discharges, through both the adoption and incorporation into process lines of best available effluent treatment equipment, and through the development of new treatment methodologies. We are also planning to tackle the issues around packaging waste, and intend to evaluate and prioritize the best methods for treating and recovering valuable materials from end-of-life circuit boards. The Environmental Working Group also has ambitious plans to turn its existing PCB Industry Best Practice Guide and Legislation Database into a Web site that will offer an up-to-date source of useful information. This will benefit the whole PCB industry, especially those companies that have implemented an environmental management and audit system, such as ISO14001. By the time you read this column, we should be halfway through the scoping study on end-of-life boards, and should be just about to hold our first seminar of the year in which we will help to launch a series of environmental guides ...