A fundamental component of the ZeVA (Vision Zero in Action: zero congestion, zero accidents and zero pollution) program which aims to achieve tangible and measurable results, in line with the climate law approved by the European Parliament (Zero emissions by 2050), concerns the regeneration of OCTO devices.
What are OCTO devices and how do they work?
The “devices” or black boxes, as OCTO devices are often known, are systems installed in a vehicle that allow you to record and communicate data relating to driving information (including events such as crashes), information relating to maintenance and assistance of the vehicle associated with it. The device can be installed on board the vehicle by connecting to the service battery (12 or 24V) or it can be connected to the vehicle diagnostic port (OBDII), and is equipped with a GNSS satellite receiver for geo-referencing the use of the vehicle, an accelerometer and a gyroscope for detecting events related to its movement, and a GSM module thanks to which it transmits the stored data to a centralized OCTO server.
Our devices consist of:
– a backup battery, on average for 10-20% of the weight (depending on the specific model in Ni-MH or Li-Po technology)
– a plastic container, on average for 30-50% of the weight
– for the rest, from a printed circuit (in dielectric material and metal tracks), on which integrated and discrete electronic components are mounted (composed of various materials: silicon, copper, silver, palladium, iron, zinc, tantalum, metal oxides, cadmium, mercury, lead, chromium, nickel, aluminum, gold, etc ..).
How should devices be treated when they are no longer usable?
Waste of electrical and electronic equipment (sometimes cited with the acronym WEEE, in English: Waste of electric and electronic equipment – or e-waste), is waste of a particular type consisting of any electrical or electronic equipment of which the owner intends to discard it as it is damaged, unused, or obsolete and therefore destined for abandonment.
These products must be treated correctly and destined for the differentiated recovery of the materials of which they are composed, such as copper, iron, steel, aluminium, glass, silver, gold, lead, mercury, thus avoiding a waste of resources that can be reused to build new equipment in addition to environmental sustainability. This type of waste is regulated by the WEEE Directive (or WEEE Directive), implemented in Italy by the “WEEE” Decree.
The treatment of WEEE is carried out in adequately equipped centres, authorized for waste management and adapted to the “WEEE Decree”, using the best available techniques.
What does OCTO do to protect the environmental impact of unusable devices?
Our Vision Zero guides us in playing a key role in sustainability as well as innovation. Therefore, the goal is to minimize the production of new devices and focus on the regeneration, where possible, of the devices.
Octo has always paid close attention to the life cycle of its devices by offering them to customers on loan and recovering them at the end of the service. In over 10 years of activity, more than 1.5 million devices have been remanufactured. In 2021, 35% of the devices returned from the market were remanufactured (140,000 pcs) and shipped from our warehouse to the market for new activations.
Thanks to the regeneration we limit the consumption of new components and therefore we contribute not only to reduce the impoverishment of the availability of raw materials at a global level, but also to reduce the transport of raw materials to production sites, and of products from production sites to our logistics hub.
The same regeneration takes place at 0 km as it is carried out within the Reggio Emilia logistics hub, which receives the goods from the market, regenerates the devices with highly innovative systems and sends them back to new recipients.
As for scrapping, it is carried out when the devices that are returned are technologically obsolete and unable to provide today’s services. In 2021, about 220,000 devices returned from the market were scrapped. This volume represents approximately a few hundred quintals of goods that are recycled in compliance with the regulations and allows the recovery of precious minerals such as gold, silver, copper, platinum and palladium of which it is composed, and which have a high weight / value ratio.
How does Octo ensure regulatory and environmental compliance?
Octo is registered with the ERION WEEE and ERION PILE consortium and manages products that can no longer be reintroduced on the market as they are obsolete or non-functional, or not economically sustainable in compliance with the WEEE Decree.
Octo terminals are classified as waste with the CER code 160214. Scrapping is carried out in compliance with the WEEE. WEEE Directives and the waste code assigned to our devices is R13 (certified by an accredited laboratory).
The treatment activities by Octo provide firstly for the safety or remediation, or removal of dangerous components, and secondly for the disassembly of the sub-assemblies and preliminary separation of the materials. Once the materials have been separated, they are entrusted to a competent and accredited body that deals with the final destination of the waste for recovery (code R13) which determines the so-called end of waste, the exit from the condition of waste.
In compliance with environmental obligations and to ensure the traceability of the information flow relating to waste between the various parties involved in their management (manufacturer, transporter, final recipient), Octo manages the “Transported Waste Identification Form” which in fact performs the function of link with respect to other environmental requirements and guarantees the traceability of the flow. It also constitutes the documentary basis for the annotations that Octo manages in the “Waste loading and unloading register”, as requested by the competent Chamber of Commerce.