LED lamps and lanterns recycling and reuse: the next ten years will become a major industry problem

After nearly ten years of mainstream use, LED lamps still account for only a small portion of the European waste, accounting for only less than 2%, so the LED lamps seem to have a long life requirement. But recycling may be another thing.

"Less than 2%" is the source of the data from Eucolight. Eucolight is a group of organizations responsible for supervising the collection and recovery of lamps and lighting products in Europe, claiming that 79% of the lamps and lanterns are collected in 18 countries.

As a new generation of light source, LED has many advantages: high light efficiency, low power consumption, long life, easy control, maintenance free, safe and environmental protection, etc. The above data also indirectly indicate that LED products are generally in good condition.

This is a good side.

However, we should also pay attention to the problem of the recovery and reuse of LED lamps and lanterns in the future.

The good part of the ten years has passed since the LED began to come into the mainstream.

Nigel Harvey, chief executive of the British luminaire recycler and Eucolight member Recolight, points out that the LED will account for about 30-40% of waste within the next 10 years, and that the LED industry will pay more attention to recycling than the simpler design side of the past.

According to foreign media statistics, more than 90% of the fluorescent tube materials in the UK are now being recycled, and the design of LED lamps will make it difficult to reach even 50%.

"One advantage of LED technology is the scope of the material, design, shape, size and other explosive growth," Nigel Harvey said. "LED allows more innovation in the way of manufacturing. However, in terms of recycling, the heterogeneity of the product will bring cost cost. More materials, they are glued together, usually using adhesives and foams, and the use of mechanical processes to separate them is very difficult. All kinds of materials are: plastic, glass, ceramics, aluminum, copper and so on, and PCB. "

The problem of the recovery of LED lamps and lanterns has attracted a lot of attention at the Eucolight conference. "To this end, the delegates learned about the future technology composition and selection of LED and LED recycling technologies," Eucolight reported.

We will continue to pay attention to the development of the situation. (Editor: LED network James)

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