Mobile tags accompany fridges to the grave

An IDC - Intelligent Distributed Controls product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 29, 2004

IDC's expertise in mobile data capture is being used for the tracking of waste refrigerators, which are being recycled under the European Directive 2037/2000.

IDC's expertise in mobile data capture is being used for the tracking of waste refrigerators, which are being recycled under the European Directive 2037/2000.

The UK's fridge mountain has been much in the news lately.

There are nearly 2.4 million domestic fridges and freezers entering the waste stream per year, which is around 7000 units every day.

One company that is tackling this problem on behalf of local authorities and waste management organisations is M Baker Recycling .

The company has set up a specialist recycling plant at St Helens.

The plant handles up to 60 fridges per hour, 24 hours a day.

It takes in complete fridges/freezers strips them of accessories, performs CFC degassing and recovery operations and undertakes material separation into ferrous, nonferrous and plastic materials.

IDC's involvement in the recycling process is the result of a contract requirement for 58 Irish local authorities to track the obsolete domestic and commercial refrigerated equipment from collection to disposal.

This is necessary to verify the number of units processed to determine payment to the recycler.

The process of tracking begins when the fridges are collected from the various civic amenity sites throughout Ireland.

All the fridges collected have Smart Tags applied at the collection sites, which are then scanned by the collection team using Symbol pocket PCs with a built in barcode scanner and wireless WAN/LAN connection, as they are loaded onto the van or truck.

The pocket PC also has an infra-red link, which enables the collection data to be printed onto a portable printer to enable the civic amenity manager to retain a hard copy of the data.

All the collection team are provided with security codes for operating the handheld units.

The loaded fridges are then transported to collection depots situated in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

On arrival at each of these regional depots the Smart Tags' data are automatically downloaded over a wireless connection to a PC, which automatically logs, and records the collection data before the fridges are shipped to the recycling facility.

Collection details are archived and sent via dial-up networks on a regular basis to the server based at the recycling centre in St.

Helens.

This is responsible for holding and processing all fridge records from the point of collection to final disposal.

On arrival at the recycling centre, the fridges are scanned again, at which point the manufacturer is also recorded and the units are then processed or put into storage awaiting processing.

The server runs the "Recycling Manager" software that provides a history of all shipping and processing with reports, some of which are automatically generated, and others which are generated on a calendar basis.

IDC developed all the software including pocket PC and client/server software packages for the collection and recycling centres using an Oracle client/server real time database together with applications from their standard toolset of component modules developed in the NET environment using the C programming language.

"The forthcoming legislations resulting from the European WEEE Directive means that there will be many more projects like this one for M Baker and IDC to work on", says Peter Hadley, Business Development Manager of IDC.

"Under the new directive all separately collected electrical and electronic products have to be recycled, with the onus placed on the manufacturers to be responsible for their equipment's complete life cycle".

Andy Slaney, Director of M Baker Recycling, added: "IDC were instrumental in helping us set up the system, against very tight timescales, and now we're continuing to develop the system jointly with IDC".

"We believe that the data collected in connection with this innovative contract will prove to be most interesting to manufacturers as well as provide an efficient and comprehensive audit trail for our clients".

Kevin Buckley Managing Director of IDC added: "Whilst this particular project uses Smart Tags we are also looking into the advantages of using RFID tagging, where the tag would also enable servicing, warranty, returns and other supply chain data to be retained with the equipment".

"This is particularly relevant as IDC has introduced an RFID system, which employs fully customised read/write tags that can be embedded into products at their point of manufacture".