Guidance on best available techniques and best environmental practices for the recycling and disposal of wastes containing polybrominated diphenyl ethers (pbdes) listed under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
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- Life cycle considerations for the polymer fraction from vehicles
- Life cycle considerations for recycling of WEEE and WEEE plastic
- Life cycle considerations for the management of PUR foam
- Life cycle considerations for bromine recovery
Life cycle managementLife cycle management (LCM) has been defined as an integrated concept for managing the total life cycle of goods and services towards more sustainable production and consumption, building on the existing procedural and analytical environmental assessment tools and integrating economic, social and environmental aspects (Stockholm Convention, 2007). Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a comprehensive technique that quantifies ecological and human health impacts of an article or system over its complete life cycle (UNEP, 2011; European Commission JRC, 2010). LCA has been applied to recycling systems including a comprehensive assessment of the Swiss collection and recovery systems for WEEE (Hischier et al., 2005; Wäger et al., 2011). A targeted version of the LCA/LCM approach, which defines the boundaries, could be useful to formulate POP-PBDE management strategies in low- and-middle income countries whose recycling technologies and approaches are different from developed countries and need to be more labour intensive. For example, this approach could lead to better separation and sorting of recycled materials at WEEE dismantling facilities, and thus achieve higher values and improved recycling business operations. Other examples of LCA/LCM considerations are briefly discussed below (see also Table 3-1). Life cycle considerations for the polymer fraction from vehiclesTo date only a few papers have addressed the LCA for this waste stream (Vermeulen et al., 2011). There is common ground that landfill should be the least preferred option, but general conclusions on alternatives differ slightly depending on the assumptions and system boundaries (Boughton and Horvath, 2006;Ciacci et al., 2010; Duval et al., 2007). According to Boughton and Horvath (2006), co-combustion of ASR in a cement kiln is the most advantageous and short-term practical option, assuming that co-combustion of ASR would not affect the net release of emissions, cement quality or kiln operation (see section 7.3). Ciacci et al. (2010) found that advanced material recovery by post-shredder treatments followed by energy recovery and feedstock recycling resulted in the highest environmental benefits. Both studies confirmed, however, that market conditions still need to be improved to allow profitable recycling of automotive plastics (Duval et al., 2007). These economic barriers or market uncertainties often hamper the full-scale application of alternative ASR treatment methods (Vermeulen et al., 2011). The price of polymers is likely to increase with decreasing oil resources and rising energy costs so recycling can be expected to be more economically attractive in the future and is likely to be BAT/BEP for ASR management.
Life cycle considerations for recycling of WEEE and WEEE plasticHischier et al. (2005) examined Swiss take-back and recycling systems, and demonstrated with LCA that the environmental impact of recycling of WEEE was much smaller than that of the alternative baseline scenario considering both incineration of WEEE and primary production of raw materials. This study was done in an industrialized country where the recycling is done in an environmentally sound manner. This may not be the case in most of the developing countries, and so life cycle considerations could be adopted in each case when designing WEEE recycling business processes to ensure the proposed processes will reduce the overall environmental impacts considering the country-specific situations. Also the life cycle environmental impacts of post-consumer plastics production from mixed, plastics-rich WEEE treatment residues in a Central European recycling plant, show that from perspective of the customers delivering the residues and the customers buying the obtained post-consumer recycled plastics the recycling is clearly superior to the alternatives considered in this study (i.e. municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) and virgin plastics production) (Wäger and Hischier 2015). Life cycle considerations for the management of PUR foamSince PUR foam is sent to landfill or is incinerated in most countries, the current life cycle of PUR could be further improved in a more sustainable manner. There is potential for improvement with increased horizontal recycling of PUR foam. While PUR foam can be reused by grinding it into new polymer or recovered by glycolysis, the extent to which this can be done is limited. The large-scale use of PUR foam to make carpet rebond is currently carried out only in North America. The rebond material can again be recycled to rebond. Life cycle considerations for bromine recoverySome technologies have been developed to recover bromine from POP-PBDE/BFR-containing material flows (see annex 5).No full-scale facility has yet been operated for this purpose and there is no evidence of such closed-cycle recycling in prospect.16For a sustainable substance flow this gap needs to be closed. The increased emphasis on separating bromine-containing plastics, due to current technical limitations for only separating POP-PBDE-containing plastics, could be triggered by the Stockholm Convention's related activities, which might offer options to collect more bromine-enriched materials, which could then motivate the development of bromine recovery processes. The recovery of bromine (see annex 5) could offer income generation opportunities, if such a business environment was supported by policies and regulations, to contribute towards these costs in cases where the plastics cannot be directly recycled. To further encourage this option, the total costs (including external costs) of thermal treatment and landfill or dumping need to be assessed. For thermal facilities this might include environmental costs of emissions, corrosion of facilities and appropriate disposal of the ashes. A hazardous waste incinerator charge additional 10€ per 0.1% of bromine in addition to the basic charge per tonne of delivered waste (Wien Energie GmbH, 2014). This reflects only higher operational costs rather than environmental costs. In the case of residue disposal, the price needs to reflect the cost of engineered landfills with long-term aftercare (see chapter 8 and annex 3). Table 3‑3: Comparative emissions and impacts of recycling and recovery technologies 
(UNEP 2010a) * The PBDE material is just introduced with the metal fraction. ** Economics includes external cost consideration. Directory: Portals Portals -> Draft I film Screening Portals -> Black History Academic Bowl arts & entertainment Portals -> Setting the Table for a Successful Season Download 2.99 Mb. Share with your friends:
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