ELE0052
Written evidence submitted by Fidra
Executive Summary
Fidra is a SCIO and Scottish Registered Charity SC043895
Sound chemical management is essential for a healthy and functioning circular economy. To ensure ease of recycling, public and environmental safety and a market value in recycled material that equals that of virgin material, we need to end the unnecessary use of chemicals and prevent the use of chemicals of concern for all non-essential functions. Group-based legislation is necessary to prevent the use of harmful chemical flame retardants and prevent regrettable substitution to those which are structurally similar, in line with the precautionary principle. Clear and transparent knowledge of the chemicals contained in products is essential to support safe and appropriate use, reuse and recycling. Also, the concept of minimising waste and maximising lifespan, repairability, reuse and recycling, needs to become fundamental in product design.
Information on the chemical content of products needs to be communicated effectively to the public. The public should be given the information required, at time of purchase, to make a choice between products based on their chemical content. This will incentivise and drive innovation towards low chemical solutions that in turn simplify the recycling process and aid the functioning of an effective circular economy. Fidra supports the recommendations laid out in the recent Environmental Audit Committee’s report on ‘Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Life’ 1, which states:
‘Product labelling should be reformed to ensure consumers are aware of which groups of chemicals have been used. This should include domestic pictograms to indicate if a substance meets the criteria for a substance of very high concern. A full list of chemical ingredients should be made available on the product website and direction offered to independent, scientific advice’.
Plastic is the primary component of most electrical products, these include thermosets or epoxies, PVC or soft plastics and hard thermoplastics. Plastic is an inherently flammable material and is required to meet stringent fire safety regulations. Whilst multiple approaches to fire safety exist, the vast majority of producers rely on large quantities on chemical flame retardants to meet current regulations. The outer hard-plastic casings of TVs have been found to contain flame retardants at concentrations up to 32.2%, almost one third of the total plastics weight2.
An inexpensive and common approach to meeting fire safety standards is the application of brominated (BFRs) or chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs), which, together with organophosphorus flame retardants, are collectively known as ‘organic flame retardants’. Many of the organic flame retardants studied have shown serious adverse health effects, including abnormalities in neurological and reproductive development, or carcinogenic properties 3,4. Many BFRs have additionally been shown to exhibit endocrine disruption properties, i.e. they have adverse effects on the bodies hormone system. Until recently, BFRs were the most commonly used organic flame retardants. However, with increasing evidence of their persistence, environmental mobility and/or adverse effects on human health, many are now subject to bans and restrictions. These ‘legacy’ chemicals were quickly substituted for chlorinated or organophosphorus flame retardants, some of which are now themselves subject to, or being considered for, further restrictions. It is also important to highlight the ineffective nature of regulation without adequate enforcement, e.g. a study carried out in 2017, found banned chemicals in 2 of 12 tested TVs2.
The thermoset plastics, or epoxies, used to make circuit boards tend to have flame retardants chemically bound to the plastic. This minimises leaching during use and ensures longevity in fire protection, but still confers an occupational exposure risk, particularly to those involved in recycling or disposal, and risks loss to the environment of potentially toxic chemicals. The external casings of electronics, or hard thermoplastic shells, are more likely to have non-bonded flame retardants added at a later stage of manufacturing. Loosely bonded, ‘additive’, flame retardants have a much greater capacity to leach into the environment when landfilled or disposed of incorrectly. They migrate out of consumer products during use and disposal and can be readily found in dust, food chains, pets, wild animals, and human fat, body fluids and breast milk 3,5,6. Once in the environment, their ability to persist and accumulate mean that even legacy chemicals are likely to remain a risk to human health, long after they cease to appear in electrical products.
For many flame retardants, the potential for harm continues even after the chemical begins to degrade, and in some cases the degradation products are themselves the primary concern, making them extremely relevant to waste processers. Multiple studies have highlighted the potential for otherwise safe flame retardants to be converted under incineration to more toxic or bioaccumulative compounds 7,8. Halogenated compounds have been shown to produce toxic dioxins and furans when heated 9 e.g. during recycling, incineration or if left exposed to sunlight upon improper disposal. Dioxins, listed under Annex C of the Stockholm Convention, have been associated with immune and enzyme disorders, chloracne, and classified as possible human carcinogens; studies on lab animals have also shown a link between dioxin exposure and increased birth defects and stillbirths 10. This leads to increased exposure risk to employees and communities near recycling plants, and potential widespread environmental harm when incinerators are run below optimal operating conditions or landfills have sub-standard leachate collection technologies. A 1994 health assessment carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency concluded there was no safe level of dioxin exposure for humans 11.
Pollution from flame retardants is concentrated, though not limited, to emission hotspots. Flame retardants have been recorded in wildlife across the globe e.g. UK gannet and otter populations, seals in the Baltic Sea, Antarctic penguins, Arctic gulls and polar bears, flies in Japan, dolphins, orcas, porpoises and salmon 12-19, impacting behaviour, fertility and ultimately, population survival. BFRs have been shown to bioaccumulate within food chains, with dose and consequently risk of harm, highest for top predators. The long-range transport potential (i.e. the ability to travel far from source in, for example, oceanic currents or the movement of air masses) of PBDEs has long been recognised in the scientific literature 20, contributing towards the consensus for their restriction. There is now evidence of replacement flame retardants, such as organophosphate esters (OPEs), in oceanic sediments ranging from the North Pacific to the Arctic Ocean, indicating they are equally prone to long-range transport 21. Flame retardants represent a significant and global risk to our natural environment and wildlife.
Under the current regulatory system, there is a significant time delay between the recognition of risk and toxicity and the removal of that chemical from market. Without product recall, newly restricted chemicals are subject to the normal lifespan of the electrical product containing them, which itself is extended by an increasing move towards secondary and subsequent use, refurbishment and recycling, before finally entering end-of-life disposal. There is a current and pressing need for much greater, and wider, recognition that many of the electrical products currently in use or entering the waste stream, are likely to contain chemicals now banned or restricted. Furthermore, addressing the issue of regrettable substitution and thus preventing new harmful substances entering the market, should be a key objective in minimising the risk electronic waste presents to human health and the environment, and future-proofing chemical safety in electronics.
In all cases, the addition of these chemical flame retardants limits (or should limit), the number of appropriate reuse pathways and the subsequent market for recycled electronic material, thus reducing functionality of the circular economy. The presence of flame retardants makes responsible recycling of product casings more difficult and expensive 5. In addition to the previously discussed issue of dioxin and furan production, several BFRs are known to degrade the mechanical properties of recycled engineering plastics 22, promoting downcycling rather than recycling. Separation of plastics containing a variety of flame retardants (as required for BFR under Annex II of the EU WEEE Directive) is also difficult and costly under the current system, which is reliant on material analysis within the recycling system rather than accessible and transparent full materials disclosure throughout the products life. True recycling to equivalent function is essential to realise the benefits of a ‘closed loop system’ and reducing demand for resource inefficient virgin materials. Furthermore, several recent studies highlight the presence of harmful flame retardants in food contact articles and plastic food packaging found in marine litter, linking them to recycled electronics 23-25. Materials treated with persistent flame retardants must not be recycled into products that do not require flame retardants or that pose a threat to human or environmental health. It is clear that the current regulatory and enforcement landscape is insufficient in safeguarding human health, resource use or the environment.
The presence of harmful chemical flame retardants in e-waste represents a significant risk to human health, through both direct and indirect exposure to the chemicals themselves, and the degradation products, a risk to the environment as these chemicals migrate, accumulate and persist, and a threat to limited natural resources due to their incompatibility with effective recycling. Due to their mobility and potential for long-range transport, flame retardants leaching from the e-waste stream is a global problem. However, three key vulnerable populations include infants and children, due to an increased risk of harm during early-year development, workers within recycling, incineration and landfill facilities, and communities in proximity to these facilities, due to their potential for high levels of exposure. Concern regarding occupational and local community exposure should not be limited to regulated disposal. Illegal export of e-waste is the most likely route to substandard incineration, recycling and disposal facilities, which represents an urgent threat to human health and the environment and requires immediate prioritisation.
An initial focus should be on ensuring longevity in primary use. Many of the mechanisms aimed at achieving this goal naturally feed into more effective secondary markets. The current EU policy framework is insufficient in promoting longer product lifespans, with initiatives such as eco-design, eco-innovation and circular economy currently falling short of the requirements to bring about significant changes in the electronics sector.
All new products coming onto the market should be required to have repairability and fire safety integral to their design. Fire safety is currently assessed at the point of manufacture, allowing the use of unbound chemical flame retardants. Unbound flame retardants have a high capacity for leaching to the environment. Not only does this pose a potential risk to the user and the environment, but also degrades the fire safety of the product. To ensure safe continued use on a secondary market, fire safety must be considered in product design and not applied as a late stage addition.
It should be a mandatory requirement that components identified as ‘at risk’ for degradation or breakage, e.g. the battery or screen of a mobile phone, should be designed in a way that makes them easily replaced by the customer. Companies should be legally obliged to provide replacement parts, at a reasonable price that makes repair economically favourable, for an extended and specified time period beyond ceasing manufacture of the original product, and these should be readily available to customers. Similarly, the period over which software upgrades are available for electronic products, should not be a limiting factor to the lifespan of otherwise functioning hardware.
To further encourage repair over replacement, consumers need to be engaged and empowered to make those repairs themselves wherever possible. Our economic model needs to shift away from incentivised, cheap replacement products and upgrades, giving people access within local schools and communities to workshops, repair cafes or similar community level initiatives that encourage less wasteful societal behaviour.
In fast moving technologies where continual upgrade remains inevitable, a shift from ownership to service business models is key to achieving resource efficiency. With over 60% of customers having electronic items at home that they no-longer use 26, there is clearly a huge and untapped reservoir of products that is being missed in the current secondary marketplace. Examples such as Samsung’s ‘upgrade’ scheme, where customers return a handset in exchange for an upgrade are a logical small step towards this goal. In returning a handset to the parent company, the product is collected and can be redistributed as quickly as possible, minimising depreciation. It can be refurbished using genuine replacement parts, enhancing customer confidence in reused items, and personal data can be reliably removed, a key concern preventing customers passing on used goods 27. Eurostat data from 2013 and 2014 suggests 48% of mobile phones were bought to replace already functioning items; we cannot accept a culture where electrical goods are considered as disposable items.
Service business models for corporate IT requirements allow professionals to replace, refurbish and reuse equipment in an efficient and cost-effective manner. It takes responsibility off small business owners who may be unaware of their legal obligations for e-waste disposal. Small businesses may not have the expertise to adequately ensure data is safely destroyed and may therefore be reticent to pass equipment into the secondary market, and without the threat of enforcement, there is little incentive to correctly dispose of e-waste.
Financial incentives such as reduced taxation for circular services and/or greater enforcement and enhanced penalties for incorrect disposal, should be considered to bring about the necessary changes. We also need stricter legislation that ensures durability is the foundation of product design, and parts and software upgrades remain available for an extended time, ensuring repair is prioritised over disposal. Consumer information is a prerequisite to consumer engagement, therefore expected product lifespan should be key information available at the time of purchase; this could be achieved via mandatory labelling. The public need a much better understanding of the e-waste issue, with clear labelling and acknowledgment that electronics represent toxic waste. Where a subscription model has been deemed environmentally beneficial, the public need to be educated in these benefits and incentivised by making it the financially preferable option. Subscription models should not be used to promote continual upgrade of otherwise functional EEE, rather replace purchase and replacement where this is inevitable; careful consideration is needed to ensure this model does not supersede one of product longevity and repair.
Why does recovering materials from electronic waste pose a significant challenge? What support is required to facilitate the adoption of recovery technologies?
For material recovery to take place, products first need to enter the correct waste stream. However, evidence from the Royal Society of Chemistry suggests the public do not feel sufficiently informed about chemicals in products to be able to make appropriate decisions28. Greater transparency in chemical content, alongside information on the health and environmental impacts of these chemicals and simplified disposal advice, needs to be prioritised for improvements in processing to be realised.
The mixed chemical content of the plastics in electrical products leads to significant challenges in recycling. As described above, the separation of plastics based on the profile of flame retardants they contain is difficult and expensive to achieve, reducing the value of the secondary material. With no requirement for chemical content to be labelled or made available to recyclers, identifying specific flame retardants becomes extremely difficult with available technology, e.g. x-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques can be used to detect elemental phosphorous in non-BFR plastics, but cannot differentiate between different phosphorous compounds. Different phosphorous compounds exhibit different chemical behaviours and produce different by-products 5. This makes safely managing the recycling process, from unwanted emissions, occupational exposure hazards and confidence in the composition of the secondary material, almost impossible. Reducing the chemical content and eliminating chemicals of high concern from primary products, should form the foundation of any policy aimed at achieving a safe and functioning circular economy. Where chemicals are required, these should be documented, controlled and passed with the product from manufacture to disposal. Full chemical disclosure, traceability, transparency and availability of data are key to ensuring recycling is done safely and recycled materials are used appropriately. This should be easily achievable utilising current technologies (e.g. radio-frequency identification) linked to accessible databases, where full product histories and chemical content can be recorded.
As discussed in previous sections, consumer understanding and engagement with the issue is a key barrier to WEEE collection from both households and small businesses. The low-level communication that currently constitutes compliance with consumer information obligations (CIOs) is not effective in meeting its goal. For example, the information regarding the take-back policy of Amazon, a leading distributor of EEE, is not easily accessible when purchasing equipment. In fact, when tried, we were only able to locate the information by entering the correct terms into a search bar on a ‘help’ page. Without prior knowledge of the WEEE directive and the company’s obligations, such a search would be impossible. Customers should be made aware, at the time of purchase, that what they are buying contains hazardous material and requires care on disposal. Given the high rate of replacement in electrical goods, having this information at the forefront of a purchase, will additionally highlight disposal and recycling obligations at the time when customers are most likely to be getting rid of EEE.
Sound chemical management is key to the prevention of environmental pollution and human exposure to harmful substances, and should be a fundamental building block for legislation ensuring the appropriate treatment of WEEE in a functioning circular economy.
Fidra believes that sound chemical management needs to be based on the principles outlined below in policy, legislation and in industry:
UK public awareness of e-waste recycling is currently low and unsatisfactory. Having polled followers of Fidra’s social media, 94% replied ‘no’ when asked if they felt they had sufficient information to correctly dispose of their electronic waste. Whilst recognising the limitations of the data, this is a clear result from a generally engaged and environmentally aware section of the general population and therefore provides a useful insight into public opinion. UK households are estimated to have approximately 70 million unused mobile phones 27. Mobile phones represent one of the easier items to dispose of given their small size, ease of postage, resale value and variety of online ‘buy back’ sites, yet still these valuable resources are being hoarded and lost.
A review of public attitudes conducted by the Royal Society of Chemistry revealed that the majority of people surveyed felt they did not have adequate information to feel informed about chemicals in everyday life 28. Furthermore, results from a 2012 Eurobarameter survey found that the public were aware and concerned about chemicals in electronics, but could not access information on the chemical content or effects 29. Without greater transparency, consumers are not in a position to choose, or avoid, products based on their chemical content, and therefore are not aware of the toxicity of the waste they produce. Producers have no obligation to inform consumers of the suspected health or environmental impacts of the majority of chemicals their products contain. 197 chemicals are listed as SVHC under REACH; on request a consumer or supplier must be provided with ‘’sufficient information to allow safe use’’ of a product within 45 days of the request, but only if the product contains a SVHC in a concentration above 0.1% weight by weight. In many products, a SVHC would not pass this threshold, and there are a number of chemicals of concern that are not listed SVHC. The responsibility currently falls on the consumer to ask for the information, assuming prior knowledge of the legislation, and with a 45-day delay and no enforcement to ensure compliance, this does not adequately empower consumers to make product choices. Organisations across Europe are now working on AskREACH30 which allows barcodes to be scanned, making ‘right to request’ more user friendly, however the information is only as good as the database behind it. Consumers should be allowed to access information on all chemicals where harm is suspected, not only SVHC. Consumers will only start acknowledging the chemicals in their products, and disposing of these correctly, when the information is clearly presented to them.
References
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