Through creating MoodBox

why?

Looking through the detailed materials page of our sustainable practices’ wiki, I thought adding more raw information to it is not what I really wanted. While I was thinking about that Tom suggested I could try to go sustainable with my project and document my whole progress. I thought it was a great idea. This part of the project will list those practices/ progress and hopefully people will benefit.

Intro

What is sustainability?

First step is to ask questions. We need to ask questions to understand better, to educate ourselves better. Couple of questions that are listed here are pretty important before starting to decide/buy materials for our projects. Those questions are:

• Do products I am choosing have ingredients that have less impact on human health and on the environment?
• ..

Directives and legislations

So as far as the electronics go there are some directives that is already companies should follow. It is good to know what they are!

Most important ones are RoHS, WEEE, Packaging, Batteries.

RoHS

RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) is the European Union’s Directive regarding the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. The directive limits the allowable amounts of six hazardous substances in EEE producsts marketed in EU. These substances are lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, certain brominated flame retardants (PBBs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).

So it looks like I need to watch for RoHS compliant products when I am looking through different vendors and manufacturers. There is no way to go and control how much the manufacturer is using what, when it is building this electronic device but I think it is still good to know what a RoHS is.

Update: lead(pb)-free and RoHS are two different things. RoHS only requires pb to be below 1000 PPM in any one homogeneus material. “Pb-Free” is not clearly defined and, therefore, each manufacturer is left to define “Pb-Free” for their products. “Pb-Free” could mean anything from “no Pb at all” to “no Pb on lead finishes”. “Pb-Free” also does not include the other five hazardous substances defined in the RoHS Directive. With that said, some manufacturers will call their RoHS compliant product “Pb-Free”. You need to understand how a manufacturer defines “Pb-Free” if you plan to rely on it.

WEEE

WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) represents the EU Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment.

"The purpose of this directive is, as a first priority, the prevention of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and in addition, the reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of such wastes so as to reduce the disposal of waste."

This means we shouldn’t throw electronic waste in a landfill — reuuse or recycle 100% of the electronic and electrical equipment. Furthermore, the directive mandates manufacturers will finance the reuse and recycling and meet specific targets for this reuse or recycling. Those products should be marked with “crossed-out wheelie bin”

The directive compels members of the EU to write and implement legislation which supports the directive. EU members had until 8/13/2005 to have this in place, but implementation of some portions of the directive has been delayed until 1/1/2006. The delayed part is the actual collection and recycling of WEEE. The original schedule of 8/13/02005 still holds for producer registration and product marking. Many EU members are well on schedule to implementation. Hopes and dreams of this all going away is wishful thinking. In reality, the environmental movement is shifting into high gear. And it’s not just a European requirement — China is striving to meet or beat the Europeans. California has on the books SB20 and SB50 on the books as well, requiring the recycling of EEE having displays larger than 4 inches. Numerous other state legislatures are working on their own versions.

Packaging and Packaging Waste

The Directive urges manufacturers to design packaging that is easy to recycle and create less waste. The directive also limits the amount of hazardous substances that packaging can contain. The substances are lead, cadmium, mercury, and hexavalent chromium. Since 2004, 19 states have also passed legislation to regulate toxics in packaging. More information.

Batteries

Lead and mercury in batteries have long been recognized as an environmental problem. EU Directives date back to 1991. This year the EU is continuing work on a directive draft for Batteries and Accumulators. The scope of this directive is as follows:

"This directive shall apply to all batteries and accumulators, regardless of their shape, volume, weight, material composition or use."

The only limitations are use in military and space applications. If implemented on time, it is expected to be law in 2007. The key concept: all batteries will be recycled.

Materials

So listing the parts of the project is important too. For my project I am using;

• 8 momentary push buttons,
• 2 tricolor LEDs
• a box,
• a custom circuit consists of one xbee radio,
• one avr chip on a breadboard,
• 22 gauge wires for connecting parts,
• xport on a custom pcb,
• at least 3.5v of DC power supply.

The box might be multiplied in the future.

Buttons

With my momentary push buttons, what I am looking for buttons that can give tactile feeling to the user. At first I searched through the catalogs of NKK Switches. In their main page as stated, all their products are RoHS compliant. Also they are giving samples away too. I ordered bunch of illuminated push button switches. Only one day later someone from NKK Switches returned to me saying that they formed a partnership with their catalog distributor Mouser Electronics and he forwarded my request to them. Unfortunately I didn’t get an instant reply from Mouser, it took me to email them bunch of times to be able to get a reply. Finally that reply wasn’t that satisfactory, the woman on the other side of the line told me it was impossible to sample the parts I ordered and I need to go ahead and buy them! So this is more or less the same time I came across to Monome.

I don’t know what’s going inside of Monome but as far as their site tells they strictly support opensource production and eco friendly materials as much as they can push. This approach by itself is something I deeply respect.

I saw their button pads first time there and then apparently I saw those button pads on sparkfun site.

The button pads are made of molded translucent silicone by Precision Polymer. The material for the silicone is stated as Organic Silicone Polymer at the Precision Polymer site.

I have ordered 4x4 button pads from SparkFun and I’ll take some pictures once I get them. I am not sure how comfortable I will find them to use but I thought I’d give it a go.

Box

In order to build the box, I need a material that’s translucent. I remember times we were getting acrylic glass from Canal Street without any problems. I never thought what kind of materials they were made of though. Or if they were made of recycled polymethylmethacrylate or not.

For that I started searching it through the Materials page on the sustainable wiki. It looks like Carlyn put a nice link Plastics Resource Database where you can search places who use recycled plastics. I went on and searched for places around the neighborhood that offers those kinds of products. I have found one company called Xing Yun International Trade Inc. which put them as this:“We are a trade company dealing in computer scrap, scrap plastics and many other materials.” I emailed to the email I have found and waiting for an answer.

Looking through the web to see how degradable this material and how we can recycle it bring positive results: Recycling of polymethylmethacrylate(pdf). According to this PDF the regeneration of monomers from plastic waste requires repolymerization first and not every polyolefins repolymerizate into their monomers when heated. Fortunately, PMMA (plexiglass) repolymerizate in certain heat and subsequent polymerization of the purified monomer gives a product that cannot be distinguished from the starting material.

So I find it important to buy this product from places which use recycled materials and once you finished your plexiglass it is important to return it to those places.

I will give more detailed information about the Xing Yun International Trade Inc. once I can get in touch with them.