Millions of RFID wristbands are produced annually. These smart wearables have redefined entry gates, crowd management, and cashless payment systems at events’ venues.
But when the music stops and the festivities end, a huge environmental problem remains: How do we responsibly dispose of RFID wristbands?
Proper disposal of RFID wristbands is a difficult process since they are not a single-material products. Instead, they are multi-layered products made up of textiles, hard plastics, and electronic waste. As such, they can’t be simply recycled using regular plastic recycling containers because of the complexity of the materials used.
Why Disposing Of RFID Wristbands Responsibly Is a Challenge
Before disposing of RFID wristbands, you should understand what prevents its recycling as a unit. An RFID wristband includes three separate parts, all intertwined to work interdependently. They include:
- Outer Substrate. The band has the outer visible part that can made from different materials, including fabric, polyester, PVC, organic cotton, silicone, and bamboo.
- Smart Tag. This is a silicon microchip and coiled aluminum/copper or printed graphene radio antenna, usually covered by a PVC plastic casing.
- Plastic Slider. This fastens the band to the wrist of the person wearing it.
The problem is that such parts cannot be considered as one part for recycling because they are three absolutely separate types of materials. So, if the whole wristband is delivered to a municipal recycling plant, it will not be possible to classify it using lasers. So, it will be rejected and thrown into the landfill.
How Event Organizers & Attendees Can Dispose of RFID Wristbands Responsibly
1. Setting Up On-Site Collection Schemes and Recovery Stations
As soon as the attendee leaves the gates of the venue and returns home, the likelihood of recycling of their wristband becomes virtually nil. As such, the best way to dispose of RFID wristbands and keep them out of a landfill would be to ensure their collection before the attendees even leave the venue.
The organizers should install very conspicuous wearable recovery stations at all major gates of the venue, pathways leading to parking lots and transit points. They should also provide clear and understandable signs regarding the environmental impact of e-waste.
In order to encourage people to participate in the recycling process, they should make the whole process fun or interactive by partnering with some of the event sponsors to offer a reward in the form of discount on next year’s tickets, sustainable gift, or donation to an environmental charity for each wristband collected. In this way, the logistics team will be able to gather all the waste in one place.
2. Physical Deconstruction and Materials Separation Pipelines
Now that you have collected these wristbands in bulk at your venue recovery stations, the next thing to do is break down the individual elements. If you are a major event manager, you may opt to get a professional company in waste management services to help you sort these out, or if not, then get volunteers to help you sort out the waste during the post-event cleanup period.
The deconstruction procedure is simple, but labor-intensive:
- The Fabric Strap. Use heavy-duty scissors to cut the fabric strap from the smart tag. If the bands are 100% polyester or nylon, put them into piles for textile recycling purposes. The organic cotton or bamboo bands should be sent to commercial composting facilities after removing their plastic locks.
- The Locking Cylinder. Remove the plastic lock from the fabric strip. This is made up of hard plastics such as ABS or recycled nylon. These cylinders can be shipped to specialized facilities for industrial plastics recycling.
- The Smart Tag. Separate the PVC tag with the chips and antennas. Because of its metallic content, it must be sent straight into an e-waste recycling pipeline.
- Partnering with Specialized E-Waste and Textile Recyclers
Normal recycling methods that municipalities have cannot deal with the complicated structure of an RFID tag. To ensure true environmental sustainability, it is necessary for procurement managers of events to form business relationships with industrial recyclers prior to the event.
These firms will take complicated, multi-material consumer products and recycle them all the way down to their molecular structure.
But what happens when a lot of RFID PVC tags are sent to an e-waste recycler? They shred them using special machines and separate the materials using chemical baths.
This makes it possible to isolate the tiny silicon integrated circuits from the plastic cover and dissolve the latter, leaving behind the copper or aluminum antenna loops. Then, the metals are melted down and recycled into manufacturing loops without the need for any raw material mining. The leftover polyester fabric fragments may be shredded and transformed into insulation or even soundproofing boards.
- Transitioning to Upfront Sustainable Hardware Purchasing Choices
The ultimate solution to the waste disposal challenge is prevention through the avoidance of purchasing difficult-to-recycle materials. The sustainable approach to event logistics begins right at the start of the procurement process, even before the supply chain components have left the production line.
If you are sourcing your next round of smart credentials, make sure to select an environmentally friendly option that swaps petroleum-based plastics with their organic counterparts:
- Wooden Medallions.Request that your wristbands feature medallions, the chip holder on the wristbands, constructed of FSC-approved bamboo, cherry, or walnut wood rather than PVC plastic. Natural decay and separation systems make wood much more recyclable.
- rPET Fabrics. Specify that your fabric straps should be made from rPET (recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate), a material produced using recycled ocean plastic bottles. This way, your company would keep the plastic waste within its circular manufacturing cycle.
- Paper-based Credentials.If you are organizing a business event, make sure that your plastic PVC cards are replaced with highly durable paper credentials with RFID inlays embedded in them. They are recyclable along with paper products.
Conclusion
Involvement in responsible wristband recycling goes beyond an ethical stance, as it is highly beneficial for your brand. Today’s consumers, corporate partners, and even city owners of venues where the events take place are aware of the ecological parameters of large-scale public events. Get yours today!
