When it comes to our planet, we must realise we don’t have a “Planet B”. Blumano wants to help change some minds by assisting manufacturers in complying with EU environmental laws, obtaining cost savings for event productions, and overall using less energy.
Now that the industry is restarting, we should do this in a sustainable way. By working together, we can improve the environmental quality of the products we produce and use.
This article will be divided into three parts:
- Production and Waste
– Machinery and Other Electrical Equipment Disposal
– RoHS 1, RoHS 2, and RoHS 3 Directives
– WEEE Directive - Power Consumption (read here)
- Control System Efficiency
Machinery and Other Electrical Equipment Disposal
A manufacturer’s goal is to design, produce, and sell products. They must also ensure that all parts of their product can be disposed of safely.
The life cycle of a machine starts with the idea concept and ends with machinery disposal. Hence, we are not talking about the use of recycled materials, but about the procedures the user must follow to dismantle and dispose of their machinery, such as a distro, controller, chain hoist, or a winch. As a result, these procedures should be a part of every user manual when the product is sold to a third party.
The disposal procedure usually contains details on how to dismantle the machine, and must detail if any hazardous materials should be disposed of in specific facilities. A common example would be the disposal of oil or grease.
In addition, there are some materials that—because of their toxicity—are not allowed inside of electronic products in the EU. Products with elevated levels of toxic materials, like lead, cannot be sold in the EU, including resellers.
Figure 1: CE Mark
RoHS 1, RoHS 2, and RoHS 3 Directives
Within the CE marking process, the manufacturer must declare that their product—if it contains electronics—is free from toxic substances.
RoHS—short for restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances—is the directive that regulates substances in electronic equipment. The directives that regulate this practice for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances are RoHS 1 2002/95/EC, RoHS 2 2011/65/EU, and RoHS 3 EU 2015/863.
Usually, electronics manufacturers will place a RoHS sticker on their product, and machinery manufacturers will write the compliance to the RoHS Directives in their declaration of conformity, and just apply the CE mark. However, RoHS compliance can be misleading because it allows for exemptions. Because of this, manufacturers should clarify their level of compliance in their technical documentation. Ideally, the statement to the user should be “RoHS 3 compliant without exemptions”.
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Figure 2: RoHS Sticker
WEEE Directive
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive does not apply to fixed installations or any mobile machinery in the entertainment industry that is only designed for professional use. Any other electrical equipment that is outside of a fixed installation, and is not categorised as a machine or machinery which doesn’t explicitly indicate it’s only for professional use, will be subject to the WEEE directive with its compliance present in the declaration of conformity.
The 2012/19/EU directive imposes the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the manufacturers or distributors of such equipment. It also requires that these companies establish an infrastructure for collecting WEEE.
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Figure 3: WEEE Symbol
The WEEE symbol adopted by the European Council to represent waste electrical and electronic equipment is a crossed-out wheelie bin with or without a single black line underneath the symbol. The black line indicates that goods were placed on the market after 2005. Goods without the black line were manufactured between 2002 and 2005 and fall outside the reimbursement schemes.
Additional Information
European Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS)
UK Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
