폐소형가전 선별·회수 공정의 전과정평가 연구

Abstract

This study aims at evaluating the environmental impacts on recycling process for used small household appliances. The recycling process mainly consists of 1st-stage crushing, manual dismantling, magnetic separation, 2nd-stage crushing, eddy-current separation and near-infrared ray(NIR) separation. The overall capacity of the process is about 15 ton per day to treat used small household appliances. In this study, life-cycle assessment(LCA) methodology is applied to analyze major environmental parameters such as GWP, ADP, POCP, EP, etc. One of the major impact categories on the weight basis in the recycling process is global warming(GWP) 57.1 %, next to ADP 35.4 % and POCP 4.8 %, respectively. As a result of environmental impact on recovery of valuable resources/ton, the GWP of plastics for ABS is highest(51.41 %) compared to ferrous(8.61 %). The effects of environmental and economical benefit are also analyzed to compare with the amount of virgin materials to be recycled by recycled materials. In addition, recycled materials are also more economical in comparison to virgin materials due to the environmental avoiding effect by recycling. In conclusion, the key environmental issues related to the recycling of e-wastes are analyzed and therefore, the effective recycling process will contribute to mitigate global warming potential in the near future.