THE RoHS DIRECTIVE

TEAM MEMBERS

Eduardo Iragorri, Eva Paez, Gabriel Perez y Christopher Greaves.

MIND MAP OF OUR PROJECT

THE PROBLEM
Although there aren't many electronics products that are actually made in our country, the ones we buy from other countrieshave no restrictions as to which materials and chemicals they possess, exposing our landfills to highly toxic and poisonousheavy metals and hazardous materials which are soluble in water and that way transported to our water resources, thento our farms, and finally to the food we eat, causing poisoning, cancer and other serious pathologies which could even leadto death.

OUR METHODOLOGY

Our project seeks to inform and educate the new generation of industrial and electronics engineers at URBE about howhazardous these materials can be, so they can appreciate the importance of the RoHS Directive that was born in Europe toprotect themselves from these hazards, and even if not officially endorsed by our government, avoid the use of thesesubstances or ban products containing them on their laboral environment... That way we can make a difference, be itbig and public, or small and anonymous...We have organized the information we want to propagate in three main stages:

1- WHY LEAD FREE? and WHY NOT JUST RECYCLE?Given there are 6 banned substances with very adverse effects to public health, we will focus our project's first objective tothe understanding of these adverse effects and the difficulty there is to dispose these materials or recycle them...2- WHAT ARE THESE SO HAZARDOUS MATERIALS USED FOR?The second objective of our project is to let you know how come these materials are so used, why are they so broadly usedand what for... Also we intend to show you there are earth-friendly alternatives to their use in electronics processes...3- THE RoHS DIRECTIVE IN THE WORLD The third objective of our project is to inform our audience of what the RoHS Directive is, what was it made for, how it worksand how other countries have been taking different approaches to solving the same problem... and how others just haven't.

OUR ENGINEERING SOLUTION

Given the characteristics of the RoHS Directive, we think something like it could be successfully applied in our country withthe endorsement of our government. We think that because the Directive does not only ban the production of electronicappliances using these materials, but also the commercialization of these products in the given geographic area. Also, thefact that even something as little as the tin-coating used in the manufacture of a transistor used in an amplifying module,used inside a radio rx module of a sound system, could make the whole system unacceptable by the directive, could meanthat the manufacturers by themselves would filter their suppliers to make sure all of them are RoHS or Lead-Free Compliant,and that way the non-compliant ones could end up becoming compliant to be able to compete in the market.Pushing to make this a standard in our country, just as many of other countries are doing, could speed up thestandardization of this as a worldwide policy protecting our soil from these pollutants and improving our health andlife quality.