Going green at Fujitsu-Siemens

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Going green at Fujitsu-Siemens Computer

Two new European Union directives, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) governing the manufacture ad recycling of electrical goods, mean products must now be designed with environmental consciousness in mind.

But at Fujitsu-Siemens computers, Augsburg, Germany, they've already made substantial savings in all areas of production, from power consumption to recycling and the level of waste material:

* Fujitsu-Siemens' Paderborn recycling facility can already recycle 98 percent of all received computer materials - well above the 75 percent required by the WEEE directive. Material can now be separated into 50 different groups.

* The Augsburg plant has reduced power consumption by 60 percent due reductions in component testing (a one percent reduction in power consumption is equivalent to the power used by fifty, one-family houses over the course of a year).

* 850,000 liters of water per year have been saved by using a new soldering process for the main computer circuit boards (equivalent to five, one-family houses over the course of a year).

* Use of lead on main circuit boards has been reduced from 12 grams to less than 3 grams, saving 4.5 tons of lead per year.

* Waste has been reduced by roughly 70 percent through optimization of packaging, waste and component recycling.

Excerpted from "Green Product development at Fujitsu-Siemens" in the April/May 2006 issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Blogged on 8:16 AM by Upay

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