[sdiy] Eu might be banning Vactrols and LDRs?? Cadmium in solar cells

[cheater cheater]

You've never been to a landfill, mate. You don't see whole cars there.
Everything gets sorted and cars are as fully salvaged as possible. In
the EU it's illegal to throw away car batteries and in many countries
has been for almost a quarter century, if not more.

The whole RoHS is definitely corporate-endorsed, though. But not
corporate-motivated.

D.

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 2:10 AM, Robin Whittle <rw at firstpr.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Cynthia,
>
> You wrote:
>
>> Is the chemistry of these anything like the chemistry of solar cells
>> that generate power?
>> Are they banning that which makes green power possible? Are there
>> alternatives?
>
> There is a prominent solar cell company:
>
>  http://www.firstsolar.com
>
> who make large area, low cost, low input energy cost, moderate efficiency
> solar cell panels with glass and cadmium-telluride.
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaics
>
> I assume that the cadmium falls foul of the EU ROHS laws, and I guess this
> is the reason for their elaborate collection and recycling plan.  The
> company was recently in the news because of plans to make a massive
> project in China.
>
>
> My impression of the ROHS regulations is that they are overzealous at
> best and possibly more driven by commercial attempts to exclude products
> from less developed countries.
>
> As long lead-acid batteries are used in cars, UPS systems, burglar alarms
> etc. there will be lead-acid batteries in landfills.  My guess is that
> these large amounts of elemental lead would dwarf the lead in the 60/40
> solder in discarded electronics.
>
> The whole idea of trying to make landfill contents compatible with
> drinking water seems nutty to me.  Metals are only part of the problem,
> and there are an unknown and unknowable number of pollutants in general
> rubbish.
>
>  - Robin
>
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