The Home Appliance Recycling Law (hereunder referred to as the Law) for used cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines was enacted in April 2001 in Japan. The Law requires that retailers reclaim, and manufacturers and importers recycle such home appliances. Consumers are required to pay collection and recycling fees incurred in disposing of any of the four home appliances. Home appliances must, as a general rule, be managed in accordance with the Law. In reality, other routes exist, such as via local authorities, scrap processors, illegal dumping and exporting. At about the time the Law was enacted, the refrigerant used for air conditioners and refrigerators was replaced by more environmentally friendly substances such as isobutene. Local authorities had the responsibility of disposing of the appliances of households before the enactment of the Law. It was general practice for local authorities to dispose of home appliances in landfills after breaking them up and recovering valuable resources such as iron, copper and aluminum. Although they made efforts to recover refrigerant fluorocarbons, there were not required to do so. This study analyzed the material flow resulting from the Law and other processing flows to quantify the global warming effect caused by home appliance recycling using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. To evaluate the Law and to develop policy planning, the challenges of future efforts will be considered using time series data. For these reasons, we have assessed the Project Scenario, which corresponded to the present reality; the Baseline Scenario, which assumed that measures such as the Law were not implemented after 2000, and the Ideal Scenario, where all used products were recycled as prescribed by the Law. The environmental impacts for each scenario were estimated using value, which was obtained from multiplying the amount of reproduction and waste treatment by each inventory data. It is estimated that emission reductions of 4.7E+4 t CO2e, subtracted the Project Scenario from the Baseline Scenario, were reduced for TVs in 2001 through recycling. The impact from recycling glass from cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions is significant. An improvement of 2.3E+4 t CO2e could be anticipated by upgrading to the Ideal Scenario in 2001. It was estimated that there was a reduction of 9.2E+5 t CO2e in 2001 for air conditioners. Although the effect of the recovery for refrigerants contributed greatly, some fluorocarbons that are still discharged have had a considerable impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Hypothetically, a reduction of 3.2E+6 t CO2e could be anticipated with the Ideal Scenario in 2001. A reduction of 2.6E+6 t CO2e was achieved for refrigerators in 2001. Although a further reduction can be anticipated through the Ideal Scenario, there will not be much difference with the Project Scenario by 2010. It was estimated that 3.8E+4 t CO2e were reduced for washing machines in 2001. Only a small improvement can be expected through the Ideal Scenario. Since many assumptions were used in this study, a sensitivity analysis was carried out in order to grasp their impact. The findings of the sensitivity analysis are that the uncertainties are large, but the number of the greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions is still clear except for the difference between the Project Scenario and the Ideal Scenario for TVs. This analysis gives authenticity to the findings. Establishing a system for liquid crystal display and plasma display panel TVs is desirable because the absolute amount of used LCD/PDP TVs will rapidly increase as the usage of CRT TVs rapidly decreases from 2007. With regard to refrigerant recovery from air conditioners, a significant decrease in GHG emissions has been recorded. There is, however, still ample room for improvement. It will be necessary to switch to refrigerants with low global warming potentials (GWPs) or work more on improving the recovery rate in the future. Alternatives and recovery of fluorocarbons from refrigerators contributed greatly to GHG reductions. The GHG emissions from refrigerator recycling will be minimal whether used refrigerator will be processed legally or not because most used refrigerators will contain natural refrigerants in the near future. The improvement for washing machines was low because it was assumed that their main constituent steel has been previously recycled, and that the plastic recycling rate will not change significantly in the future. An improvement in the recycling technology itself is required. This study was carried out on four home appliance products, and it was found that the Home Appliance Recycling Law has brought significant reductions in GHG emissions. There is also room to make GHG reductions through improving the processing methods further. The impact on GHG emissions by fluorocarbons of air conditioners and refrigerators is the greatest. Adequate measures are particularly required for air conditioners that may continue to discharge GHGs in the future.
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Dec 23, 2023
Minjung Lee + 2
Open Access