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Related Experiment Videos

WEEE plastic sorting for bromine essential to enforce EU regulation.

Pierre Hennebert1, Montserrat Filella2

  • 1INERIS (National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks), BP 2, F-60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France.

Waste Management (New York, N.Y.)
|October 15, 2017
PubMed
Summary

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Sorting waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) plastics is crucial for managing hazardous brominated flame retardants (BFRs). This process helps prevent the uncontrolled dispersion of regulated substances in recycled materials, ensuring safer recycling practices.

Area of Science:

  • Environmental Science and Engineering
  • Materials Science
  • Chemical Engineering

Background:

  • Plastics in waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) often contain brominated flame retardants (BFRs) for fire safety.
  • Management of WEEE plastics must comply with evolving hazardous waste regulations and product restrictions, such as for decabromodiphenylether.
  • Brominated substances are present heterogeneously across various EEE components and product types, complicating waste management.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze bromine and BFR concentrations in EEE plastics and WEEE processing streams.
  • To evaluate the effectiveness of sorting WEEE plastics based on bromine content for regulatory compliance.
  • To assess the distribution of regulated versus non-regulated brominated substances in different WEEE waste streams.
Keywords:
Brominated flame retardants (BFR)Electric and electronic equipment (EEE)Hazard property (HP)Persistent organic pollutants (POP)

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Main Methods:

  • Chemical composition analysis of bromine and BFRs in EEE and WEEE plastics using handheld X-ray fluorescence and other analytical techniques.
  • On-line X-ray transmission sorting of shredded WEEE plastics based on total bromine content (< or > 2000 mg/kg).
  • Analysis of specific BFRs including polybromobiphenyls, polybromodiphenylethers (PBDE), tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), and hexabromocyclododecane.

Main Results:

  • Bromine content is highly variable in EEE plastics; 46% of items contain bromine, and 39% are fully brominated.
  • Sorting WEEE plastics significantly reduces bromine concentration in 'Low Br' fractions and decaBDE levels below regulatory limits.
  • Bromine concentration in 'High Br' fractions after sorting exceeds current and future regulatory thresholds, indicating the need for further management.

Conclusions:

  • Sorting WEEE plastics from small household appliances, cathode ray tubes, and flat screens is essential to prevent the uncontrolled release of regulated substances.
  • Other WEEE categories, such as large household appliances, also exhibit high total bromine content and warrant consideration for sorting.
  • On-line total bromine measurement is the most practical method for sorting WEEE plastics due to the complex mixture of brominated substances.