Copper classification conundrum

As the industry weighs in on wide-ranging consequences of the prosposed classification of copper as a precious metal (FTW October 17, 2014), there’s an additional cost warning for the SA freight industry, according to Kamiel Rajah, associate attorney with the international transport, trade & energy department at Shepstone & Wylie. “The act,” he told FTW, “specifically states that a person may not transport precious metals unless he or she is in possession of the prescribed documentation. “The implications for the freight industry in terms of costs associated with obtaining licences and ensuring that documentation meets the standards in the act is likely to increase the costs to the various stakeholders and companies involved in the industry.” Rajah also stressed that alternative materials did the same job as copper cable, and better. One example is the introduction of smoothwall coaxial cable assembly into the wireless market. Similar cable and connector assemblies have been used in the cable television (CATV) industry for more than 30 years and have been deployed in over 90% of the broadband networks throughout the world. This could do away with the temptation of copper. And, as Rajah suggested, saving the need for such an extreme form of dubious theft control as this re-categorisation of copper to precious metal.