FPD Recycling

The list of corporate juggernauts that no longer exist or are a shell of their former selves can fill a business textbook. At one point BlackBerry had 20% of the global mobile phone market and today it has very little. Kodak practically invented the camera and photography up until the early 2000’s when digital took over. Did you know Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 and didn’t focus on the technology as they made the greatest profit on film and processing? AOL was the gateway to the “old internet”.  Blockbuster failed to see the future of video consumption as Netflix evolved from renting DVDs to streaming. 

In certain WEEE markets (e-scrap to our USA and Canadian customers) such as the United Kingdom POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) are a hot topic in the industry.

Background

There are changes in WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) processing taking place right now, many of which are shifting away from traditional, labour intensive, inefficient, and mostly manual processes to the utilisation of automation and intelligent robotic solutions for materials recovery from WEEE.

What if…Managing WEEE within borders was more than just an ideology…

As with all businesses e-scrap recyclers have been severely affected with the pandemic of COVID-19 with some markets stating up to an 80% drop on in bound volumes of material for processing, others have closed entirely for an unknown period.
With the financial crisis of 2008 the recycling market proved to be resilient despite raw material prices falling or end markets for certain raw materials drying up. At FPD Recycling we are confident our industry is strong and will return with a likely surge in material for processing,
Why?
Sporting events in 2020 have been postponed globally, Tokyo Olympics, English Premiership football/soccer, Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, American Football, International Golf events the list continues of postponed sporting events. These tournaments have been rescheduled to later this year or in most cases 2021, this will likely show an uplift in the purchase of new televisions with a surge of old screens requiring processing.

As the lock down and stay at home orders since March 2020 have been enforced, internet sales have surged including those of flat panel displays as families stay at home but are unable to dispose of their old flat panel display having to store the old unit until the stay at home ban ends allowing for disposal.

After 17 years in WEEE Recycling I have seen a lot of change in the way electrical and electronic waste is managed.

Do you remember when the skip trucks proudly proclaimed, ‘Waste Removal’ and Waste Disposal’? That was re-marketed into the catch-all ‘Waste Recycling’ and now we have dropped the word ‘waste’ and are in the midst of ‘Resource Recovery’ and moving to ‘Critical Raw Material’ management.

Thing is, those that were removing ‘waste’ electrical items then and put them through their shredders, are pretty much still doing it now… except its ‘resource recovery’.

Well, not exactly but the point is that historic waste management techniques, where volume is king, are only slowly being complimented (not replaced!) by modern new and innovative technologies, adapting to the changing standards and regulations and flexibility to meet market demands.

At FPD Recycling, the introduction of a fully automated de-pollution system for all Flat Panel Displays (FPDs) (a fast-growing niche in WEEE management) has been received very well in the marketplace.
However, one question is outstanding…. The conversation flow will have the following proclamation…

‘Yes, we understand the need for a fully automated system to deal with CCFL flat screens but what about LEDs and others? Can we just shred these?’

It is agreed by most everyone involved in the recycling and management of waste FPDs that screens backlit with Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) cannot be shredded. It is not acceptable due to the mercury content of ccfls which will contaminate the shredded fraction.

This consensus is not carried on for those FPDs that are not ccfl backlit such as those with Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) or with organic molecules (OLEDs) as the backlighting source.

A flat panel display is a television, monitor or other display appliance that uses a thin panel design instead of a traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) design [1].