WEEE compliance: is RFID tagging the answer?

IDC Managing Director Kevin Buckley discusses the issues involved in using RFID tagging to achieve compliance with the WEEE Directive.

The decision by the UK Government, in August 2005, to delay until June 2006 the producer and retailer take-back obligations under the EU Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE Directive), gives industry a breathing space that it did not previously enjoy with the original deadline, set at January 2006.

Under the WEEE Directive, EU member states have to ensure that systems are set up by producers to provide for recovery and reuse of separately collected waste electrical and electronic equipment, according to set recovery, reuse and recycling targets.

Central to the effective functioning of these systems is the handling of large amounts of data.

This is recognised in the directive by the significant data reporting obligations placed on producers.

In order to identify the producer, the equipment must be marked with the producer's name and the date of introduction to the market.

Moreover, information must be provided to enable treatment facilities to identify components and the type and location of substances - including hazardous ones.

In addition, WEEE specifies requirements for appliance specific reuse and recycling percentages, calculated from the material content of the product.

The breadth of data required by the new Directive has led many companies to consider RFID tagging as the best means of documenting the entire life cycle of products.

However, for this to be successful, waste treatment facilities must also 'buy into' the technology and standardise on a particular tag type and tag frequency.

The standardisation issue apart, what had become evident from projects undertaken by IDC is that the process of recycling of electrical and electronic waste is a challenging one for the application of RFID technology.

The major reason for this is the metal contained in the products and the containers in which they are collected.

Radio frequency signals do not pass through metal, so when metallic materials are close to the antenna of a HF or UHF tag or reader the effect is to reduce the overall read range of the system.

Another undesirable effect is absorption: RF signals are absorbed by metal, instead of going through it.

This affects HF tags and UHF tags differently.

HF tags have a lower read range, while UHF tags can have increased read range if there is a sufficient air gap between them and the metal surface.

The higher the tag is lifted, the better it works.

However, the protrusion of the tag often hampers its usability, so the ideal height is usually of the order of 5mm.

IDC has enjoyed success with self-adhesive UHF tags of this height.

The tags are foam-backed to provide the necessary isolation between the tag and the product.

In other applications we have had to resort to ferrite shielding to ensure integrity of the tag/reader system.

In addition to actual operation of the tags, two other major issues are what size of tag to use, and what to do with the tag itself when the equipment reaches the recycler? Ideally, for producers to benefit from economies of scale, standardisation of the size of tag used on all of their equipment is essential.

As regards the tag itself, when it has provided all the data required by the waste treatment facility it is then redundant, so part of the information it must provide concerns its own material of construction, and how it should be recycled.

These key issues are addressed by IDC in conjunction with its smart media partner, a collaboration that provides complete turnkey solutions to RFID projects.

The partnership is able to convert raw RFID tag inlays into smart media, such as self-adhesive labels.

These offer read and write capability and can also incorporate bar codes where necessary, with company specific encryption if required, and can be easily integrated into all types of merchandise.

One successful project already completed by IDC as part of the WEEE Directive concerns fridge recycling.

With nearly 2.4 million domestic fridges and freezers entering the waste stream per year this is a critical activity.

IDC's involvement in the recycling process was the result of a contract requirement for 58 Irish local authorities to track obsolete domestic and commercial refrigerated equipment from collection to disposal.

This was necessary to verify the number of units processed to determine payment to the recycler.

The process of tracking begins when the fridges are collected from the various civic amenity sites throughout Ireland.

All the fridges are equipped with smart tags, applied at the collection sites, which are then scanned by the collection team using Symbol Pocket PCs with a built in barcode scanner and wireless WAN/LAN connection, as they are loaded onto the van or truck.

The Pocket PC also has an infrared link, which enables the collection data to be downloaded to a portable printer to enable the civic amenity manager to retain a hard copy of the data.

All the collection teams are provided with security codes for operating the handheld units.

The loaded fridges are then transported to collection depots situated in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

On arrival at each of these regional depots the smart tag's data are automatically downloaded over a wireless connection to a PC, which automatically logs, and records the collection data before the fridges are shipped to the recycling facility.

Collection details are archived and sent via dial up networks on a regular basis to the server based at the Recycling Centre in St.

Helens.

This is responsible for holding and processing all fridge records from the point of collection to final disposal.

On arrival at the recycling centre, the fridges are scanned again, at which point the manufacturer is also recorded and the units are then processed or put into storage awaiting processing.

The server runs the 'Recycling Manager' software that provides a history of all shipping and processing with reports, some of which are automatically generated, and others that are generated on a calendar basis.

IDC developed all the software, including Pocket PC and client/server software packages for the collection and recycling centres, using an Oracle client/server real- time database together with applications from a standard toolset of component modules developed in the NET environment using the C# programming language.

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