Comparison on End-of-Life strategies of WEEE in China based on LCA

doi:10.1007/s11783-017-0994-7

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2017, Vol. 11

Issue (5) : 7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0994-7

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Comparison on End-of-Life strategies of WEEE in China based on LCA

Bin Lu¹, Xiaolong Song², Jianxin Yang¹(

), Dong Yang³

¹. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
². Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Centre for WEEE Recycling, Shanghai Polytechnic University, Shanghai 201209, China
³. SDAS Key Laboratory of Scientific Decision-Making, Institute of Science and Technology for Development of Shandong, Shandong Province Academy of Sciences, Jinan 250014, China

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Abstract

Unit and Components Reuse are compared with materials recovery based LCA.

The obsolete refrigerator and Power Supply of computer are taken as the examples.

End-of-Life hierarchy is reasonable for the obsolete power supply of computer.

Reuse is not necessarily suitable for obsolete refrigerators.

The secondary lifespan of reused products/components is the key factor.

As the Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) are upgraded more frequently in China, a large quantity of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) was and will be generated. It becomes an urgent issue to develop and adopt an effective End-of-Life (EoL) strategy for EEE in order to balance the resource recovery and environmental impacts. In an EoL strategy hierarchy for EEE, reuse strategy is usually deemed to be prior to materials recovery and other strategies. But in practice, the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies are always context-dependent. Therefore, main EoL strategies for EEE in China need to be evaluated in environment and resources aspects from the life cycle perspective. In this study, the obsolete refrigerator and Power Supply Unit (PSU) of desktop PC are both taken as the target products. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to assess the environmental impacts of different EoL scenarios in China: Unit Reuse Scenario (URS), Component Reuse Scenario (CRS) and Materials Recovery Scenario (MRS). The LCA results show that the EoL strategies hierarchy is reasonable for the part of computer, but not necessarily suitable for obsolete refrigerators. When the policy makers promote or demote one EoL strategy especially reuse, it is necessary to take subsequent impacts into consideration.

Keywords End-of-Life Waste electrical and electronic equipment Life cycle assessment Reuse

Corresponding Author(s): Jianxin Yang

Issue Date: 31 October 2017

Cite this article:

Bin Lu,Xiaolong Song,Jianxin Yang, et al. Comparison on End-of-Life strategies of WEEE in China based on LCA[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2017, 11(5): 7.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-017-0994-7
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2017/V11/I5/7

Fig.1 System boundary of the LCA study

Tab.1 Life cycle inventory- Important Raw Materials- Fuels and metals

Fig.2 LCIA Results of 3 EoL Scenarios of PSU

Fig.3 LCIA damage categories results of PSU

Fig.4 LCIA results of Functional Unit A (a) and Functional Unit B (b)

Tab.2 Sensitivity analysis—Consumption of crude oil

Fig.5 System boundary of LCA on obsolete refrigerator

Fig.6 LCIA impact (a) and damage (b) categories of MRS and URS (2nd lifespan is 2 years)

Fig.7 LCIA impact (a) and damage (b) categories of MRS and URS (2nd lifespan is 3 years)

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