Environmental considerations are playing an increasing role in the manufacture and marketing of products. The main issues arise from compliance with EU legislation and can be split into process or product-related issues.
Process Issues
Manufacturing sites are subject to regulation by Local Authorities & the Environment Agency and must comply with both UK & EU legislation. Pollution, Prevention & Control (PPC) regulations are already in place, which require monitoring and control of emissions to water, air and land. Other relevant regulations include local air quality standards, the water framework directive, land quality, landfill and hazardous waste regulations. The landfill regulations in particular will mean that the cost of waste disposal will become prohibitively expensive. Increasingly reuse, recycling and recovery operations will be required to reduce waste to landfill.
Product Issues
There are several European directives affecting products in the market place. The End-of Life Vehicles (ELV) directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive and Packaging and Packaging Waste directive, all have targets for end-of-life recycling. Meeting these targets can be achieved in a number of ways. The end-of-life directives also restrict the amount of certain hazardous substances in products, such as lead, cadmium and hexavalent chromium. Automotive, electronic and packaging producers and their suppliers have to ensure that their products meet these requirements.
Increasingly regulators are taking a life cycle approach to product regulation, which has seen the promotion of tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The Energy Using Products (EUP) directive and Integrated Product Policy (IPP) require designers to consider the whole life of a product from cradle-to-grave. A key issue is the energy and CO2 required to make a product as well as the energy consumed during the use phase of a product. The recyclability of a product or material at the end of its life will also have an effect on overall CO2 emissions.
REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation of Chemicals) could have a major impact on the surface engineering industry. Risk assessments on whether substances pose a risk to human or environmental health, could mean that the use of certain substances is restricted or phased out.
