EXAMPLE OF REUSE AND RECYCLING ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:
|
sludges produced by the waste water treatment plants are sent to the cement and brick industry; |
|
|
deflashing waste powders are sent for precious metals recovery; |
|
|
extensions of laser deflashing avoids resin flash waste; |
|
|
cleaning and reusing gloves and overshoes where possible; |
|
|
reject silicon wafers are increasingly used in solar panels, which avoids landfilling and resmelting; silicon scrap from all sites is sold, generating an income of M$0.5 in 2001.
|
In April 2002 we signed a contract with a large waste recycling company for the management of the waste generated in our assembly sites, and where resin represents the majority of waste. The resin waste will be recycled to manufacture floor tiles and bricks. By 2003, two years ahead of the Decalogue target of 2005, we plan to reduce the present ratio of landfilled/total waste (which is about 30%) to 5%.
PAKING
We have arrangements with recycling and packaging companies to take back packing tubes and plastic trays for recycling.
To save money we buy a mix of recycled and new plastic trays. Our site at Malta, for example has more than halved its packaging costs between 1998 and 2001. At our Catania site, wafer packing is reused for inter-company shipments, saving approximately M$1.1 a year.
HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS
We provide detailed information on all ST products to customers, including technical descriptions of the chemicals used in packaging materials and the physical characteristics of ST packages.
We have also launched the ECOPACKR program which is intended to identify environmentally friendly packaging materials. Through this program ST will eliminate hazardous materials (lead, antimony and bromine) in the manufacturing of integrated circuits and discrete packaging. This requires the re-engineering of solder joint technology and the substitution of bromine and antimony as flame retardant in plastic packaging.
The program was started in 1997 with the introduction of nickel-palladium plating. However due to the increasing cost of palladium (a 15-fold increase in three years), we have started to develop an alternative based on lead-free tin alloys. They will be extended to the large majority of “leaded” packages in 2002-2003.
A lead-free BGA (Ball Grid Array) package was developed and validated in 1999. In 2000 the first TSOP (Thin Small Outline Package) using bromine/antimony-free molding compounds was qualified and is now in full production. A lead- and bromine/antimony-free BGA was validated in the fourth quarter of 2001.
