Posted on: 24th April 2006, Germany E-mail this page to a friend

Friday March 24, 2006 is the start date in Germany of the European WEEE directive (Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment). It obliges manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment to take back and recycle their products. OSRAM is perfectly prepared for this and guarantees that its lamps will be disposed of with minimal impact on the environment and will be recycled as far as possible.

It is expected that throughout Germany around 50 million lamps will be returned for recycling in 2006 alone. To ensure the highest possible recycling quota and environmentally friendly disposal OSRAM in Germany, along with other companies, will be using the OLAV return system operated by waste disposal specialists CCR Logistic Systems, Munich. For private households the return of fluorescent lamps and energy-saving lamps will be handled via local councils. For commercial users there will be additional collection points set up on a voluntary basis. The entire operation is organised on behalf of CCR by Lightcycle Retourlogistik und Service GmbH, a joint venture of the lamp manufacturers.

Closing the circle

It is OSRAM's aim to reuse as high a proportion of the material as possible for producing new lamps. This saves on raw materials and reduces costs. "WEEE will help us close the material cycles because as manufacturers we have influence over material flows for the first time", said Karl-Heinz Pietsch, head of the WEEE project at OSRAM.

To take control of the material flows, companies in the electrical industry in Germany have founded the EAR foundation (Electrical Equipment Register) – as a "joint enterprise of manufacturers" under German electrical and electronic equipment legislation (ElektroG). This legislation regulates the implementation of the European WEEE directive in Germany. The EAR foundation ensures that volume of old equipment and the resultant disposal obligations are assigned on the basis of origin.

Lamps are a special case

Compared with other products, such as washing machines or photocopiers, the waste disposal costs resulting from the WEEE directive are particularly high for lamps in relation to their unit price. As they can easily break, considerable care and therefore costs are involved in their collection, transport and handling. In terms of quantity, lamps and luminaires make around 80 percent of the total quantity of items expected. In terms of their weight, however, the situation is very different. They make up just 1 percent.

At the same time, lamps and luminaires manufactured by OSRAM are highly complex products consisting of a large number of different materials and components. Fluorescent lamps, for example, contain small quantities of mercury, which has to be disposed of properly to protect the environment. To make recycling easier and to enable us to reuse as much raw material as possible, OSRAM makes widespread use of lead-free glass.