High Time to be Environmentally Responsible and Switch to Green Wire

There would not have been a more suitable time to talk about how sustainably the cables can be manufactured that would leave the least by-product for the environment. Companies or brands should be abounding by tough regulations. The environmental impact has started to dominate over efficiency for both the customers as well as for the designers. So basically, a green cable is the one that is manufactured by using fewer hazardous ingredients and the final product is as environment-friendly as possible. For example, halogen-free cables or low smoke that restricts the use of chlorine, fluorine and other halogens as well. Some of the renowned names in the halogen-free wires are ECOACE, ECOBEAMEX, etc. 

The main advantages that these halogen-free wires are at the time of disposal –

• They can be easily disposed of by incineration and does not pose any dangers of producing dioxins.
• They can easily be disposed of in landfills as there is no danger of leaching.
• The heat produced during incineration can be easily reused as energy and is known as “thermal recycling”

Copper life cycle assessment to test the greenness of copper wires

The best way to test the greenness of copper wires is by a scientific way named life cycle assessment. This assessment is incorporated at each design phase starting from the initial production, use phase and at last disposal and recycling phase. ISO has itself lied down guidelines that involve underlying life cycle inventories and keeps a check on independently at every step. Life cycle assessment has now become marketing and a decision making contrivance. It helps any buyer whether a wholesale or any direct consumer to compare the products and select the most environmentally friendly one.

Why copper wire a better option?

Just behind silver, copper stands second in the list of electrical conductivity. Its electrical conductivity is approximately twice that of aluminum and six times that of iron. By default, a material with higher conductivity requires a smaller cross-section for the same current to conduct. Hence, copper wires are used more in transformers and motor-driven systems and increase energy efficiency. Copper can be recycled to extent of 100 % without any loss in performance. Therefore, copper wires top the life cycle assessment test and a typical residential building wire has a cross-section of 2.5 square millimeters.

More revolutionary environment-friendly ideas 

Recycled plastic packaging has the potential to become electricity wires. Though all the plastics are made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen their arrangement together is aligned differently in each plastic. Plastic can be broken down into different arrangements to form carbon nanotubes. This has given hopes to the researchers to make high purity carbon electrical cables using waste plastic materials.

It is known as a fact that as the temperature rises, resistance increases then, as a result, more energy will be lost in the form of heat. And as more and more energy is lost in heat, the efficiency of the electrical equipment reduces. Larger the conductor size, greater is the amount of heat and more heat generated. Hence, select the larger conductor as the costing that will incur in this case, will be lesser than a smaller conductor. So be a smart buyer and a responsible one and to select the larger conductor and contribute a little to the environment from your part as well.

We at Rajasthan Electric Industries completely understand our committal towards the environment and try to keep our products as less precarious for the environment as possible. We would like to hear from our viewers and customers for any more ideas or contributions that can be put into to conserve our mother Earth.