Manufacturing Processes Circuit board components. 3Com engineering teams diligently minimize discrete component count on printed circuit boards. Although these efforts increase design time, they help reduce the raw materials consumed for manufacture and save power.

Package size. 3Com has reduced the packaging for its high volume wireless access points and is rolling out reductions on the packaging of its secure NIC products.

Documentation and CDs. To save paper, plastics and shipping weight, 3Com publishes product documentation online, allowing the removal of printed materials and CDs from its enterprise switch and router packages, saving an average of 10,000 trees a year. (Based on a standard cord of wood measuring 4ft. x 4ft. x 8ft. making 90,000 sheets of paper and 1.8M product shipments per year with 500 pages per document pack.)

Metal enclosures. New product designs use innovative strengthening bars embedded into the chassis and the thinnest possible steel to significantly reduce metal use and shipping weight.

RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directives. 3Com® products comply with RoHS directives that restrict the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers, as well as with the WEEE directive that makes producers responsible for the disposal and recycling of their products. Furthermore, products shipping to China comply with the China Ministry of Information Industry Order #39, “Administrative Measures on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products”—commonly refered to as China-RoHS.

Designed for Safety and Recycling
Because recycling is such a critical environmental issue, the 3Com New Product Introduction Process requires the selection of materials and designs that can be effectively recycled. The company’s recycling and anti-pollution initiatives include:

• Elimination of added SCCP flame retardants and plasticizers
• Elimination of certain flame retardants classified under European Council Directive 67/548/EEC in large plastic product parts
• Elimination of lead, cadmium and mercury from batteries
• Elimination of PVC from large plastic product parts
• Identification of materials with special handling needs
• Elimination of paints or coatings that are not compatible with recycling or reuse
• Identification and removal of components containing hazardous materials
• Elimination or removability of molded/glued-in metal
• Elimination of intentionally added toxics in packaging
• Easy disassembly of external enclosures
• Manual separation of plastics
• Reduced number of plastic material types
• Separable packing materials
• Minimum standard of 65% reusable/recyclable material