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Waste
| Achieve 100% treatment of waste at level 1 to level 4 of ladder concept preferability, with a half life improvement goal of less than one year. |
LANDFILL
Landfill is considered to be an extreme solution, especially in the light of legislation that will limit landfill only to "ultimate waste" that cannot be recycled. More and more, at ST's sites around the world there are separate collections in homogeneous categories of waste. To date, some 30 categories have been identified. At present, this is the main means for minimizing disposal to landfill and to improve its reuse and recycling.
There are several aspects to this point: waste may pose a threat to the environment, it is subject to legislation, and can also be turned into a source of revenue. It is therefore important to adopt the best practices in waste management, to maintain an accurate and regular reporting system and to benchmark ourselves within the Company, vis-a-vis other semiconductor manufacturers, and with the best in class waste management companies.
The Ladder concept is explained in Appendix 3.
At Agrate, in Italy, an "ecological island" was constructed where some 20 different types of waste are safely collected in separate skips.
Subsequent recycling minimizes the need to use local landfill sites.
These initiatives are being repeated at other sites.
MANUFACTURING
| Recycle 80% of manufacturing by-product waste (metal, plastic, quartz, glassware etc.) with a half-life improvement target of less than 1 year. |
Experience has shown that recycling waste is less expensive than discarding it. The graph below shows the achievement obtained in manufacturing waste reuse/recycling at Corporate level.
Sludges
The sludges produced by the physical-chemical treatment of the waste water, a by-product of our activities, are, in effect, raw materials for other industries: the cement and brick industry, for example. Sending sludges, typically containing calcium fluoride and calcium sulphate to such industries is the best approach to waste management. It revalorizes, recycles and minimizes landfill.
 At our Catania site alone, some 800 tons per year are recovered in this way, bringing savings of $K70 per year. Similar initiatives exist at our sites at Tours and Rousset in France, and at Agrate and Cornaredo in Italy.
The graph below shows the success of efforts made in Agrate during 1998 to reduce the disposal to landfill.
Deflashing waste
Two deflashing media exist in our product assembly sites: glass or brass powder. Brass powder is used in Ain Sebaa (Morocco) and in Muar (Malaysia). In both cases the powders are sent out and any precious metals are recuperated. ST is then paid for these.
The ST Singapore and Malta sites use glass media and although the material itself is recyclable, for the moment there is little interest from recycling companies. Waste volumes generated are around 4.5 tons in Malta and 26 tons in Singapore. A solution is being sought at both sites.
Protective clothing (gloves)
At Tours in France, a glove recycling program started in 1997. This required switching from vinyl to nitrilite gloves. With better mechanical resistance, only 9 pairs of nitrilite gloves were used per day and per person, as opposed to 13 pairs of vinyl gloves per day and per person. Annual savings are of $K25 per year. In addition, by recycling 30% of glove consumption, savings of $K16 were made in 1998 and this recycling rate will shortly increase when washable ink pens are introduced. Up to the present time, the stain of ball point pens was the main obstacle to full recycling.
PACKING
| Move to 80% (by weight) recyclable, reused, or biodegradable packing materials (cartons, tubes, reels, bags, trays, padding) with a half life improvement goal of less than one year. |
STMicroelectronics is confronted with two problems in this area. We have to dispose of the packing that comes from external suppliers and also ensure that our own packing is recyclable or reusable.
To do this, we continue to pack our products in homogeneous materials, not in composite material, thus avoiding the use of expanded foam with ODS and heavy metals. No chlorine-whitened materials are used and where possible, biodegradable materials are selected.
In some regions, ST and other semiconductor manufacturers in the area have contacted recycling companies where the customers can send used packing tubes as long as this packing material is not mixed and is clean. As long as these companies can resell the byproduct of their recycling, no cost will arise - either for ST or for the customer.In wafer packing, our approach relies on reuse and recycling. Single wafer containers are designed to be reusable after cleaning. At present, the total of reused and recycled packing waste has reached 87% - exceeding the Decalogue goal by about 10%.
ST is also experimenting with a new approach in reusing the raw packing coming from its silicon suppliers for inter-company wafer shipment.
AGRATE "ECOLOGIA ISLAND"
Single containers for:
 Metals
Copper
Glass
Oils
Scraps (wafers and finished products)
Urban waste
Plastic
Paper
Cardboard boxes
Wood
Unclean glass
Unclean plastic
Ni/Cd batteries
Lead batteries
Resins
Mercury lamps
Fluorescent lamps
Sludges
There is therefore no waste of packing received from the customer and there is no need to use new packing material to ship the wafers. Shipping costs have been reduced, volume is down by 55% and total shipping weight has been decreased by 65% when compared to traditional shipments.
Information to customers
The ever-pervasive use of electronic products has sharply increased the quantities of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), and ST receives many questions from customers as to the chemical content of its products. The Company is fully committed to reducing the effects of its industrial activities on the environment and is proactive in helping its customers to obtain the best Design for Environment (DFE) for their electronic equipment. Detailed information on all ST products is given to customers and a technical report entitled Chemical Content of Semiconductor Packaging describing the chemical and physical characteristics of ST packages has been published. The report contains detailed tables, covering groups of packages with a similar structural process and material composition. It covers more than 250 packages with plastic, ceramic, glass and metallic cases and is available on the ST website.
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