A study of waste liquid crystal display generation in mainland China

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1 611736WMR / X Waste Management & ResearchLiu et al. research-article2015 Original Article A study of waste liquid crystal display generation in mainland China Waste Management & Research 2016, Vol. 34(1) The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalspermissions.nav DOI: / X wmr.sagepub.com Zhifeng Liu 1, Zeying Xu 1, Haihong Huang 1 and Bingbing Li 2 Abstract The generation of liquid crystal display waste is becoming a serious social problem. Predicting liquid crystal display waste status is the foundation for establishing a recycling network; however, the difficulty in predicting liquid crystal display waste quantity lies in data mining. In order to determine the quantity and the distribution of liquid crystal display waste in China, the four top-selling liquid crystal display products (liquid crystal display TVs, desktop PCs, notebook PCs, and mobile phones) were selected as study objects. Then, the extended logistic model and market supply A method was used to predict the quantity of liquid crystal display waste products. Moreover, the distribution of liquid crystal display waste products in different regions was evaluated by examining the consumption levels of household equipment. The results revealed that the quantity of waste liquid crystal displays would increase rapidly in the next decade. In particular, the predicted quantity of waste liquid crystal displays would rise to approximately pieces in 2020, and the total display area (i.e. the surface area of liquid crystal display panels) of waste liquid crystal displays would reach m 2. The prediction on the display area of waste liquid crystal display TVs showed that it would account for 71.5% of the total display area by Meanwhile, the quantity of waste mobile phones would significantly grow, increasing 5.8 times from 2012 to In terms of distribution, Guangdong is the top waste liquid crystal display-generating province in China, followed by Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. Considering its regional characteristics, Guangdong has been proposed to be the most important location of the recycling network. Keywords Liquid crystal display (LCD), waste quantity, waste display area, prediction, extended logistic model, market supply A method Introduction As a display component with an ultrathin plane, liquid crystal display (LCD) is widely used in household appliances, computers, and communication products. According to the report from isuppli, approximately 3.8 billion small- and medium-sized (under cm), as well as 400 million large-sized (over cm) LCD panels, were produced globally in LCD contains harmful substances, such as lead, mercury, Poly Brominated Diphenyl Ethers(PBDE), Poly Brominated Biphenyls (PBBs), and so on. Meanwhile, the Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) glass in a LCD contains precious metals and high-property glass substrates, whereas indium oxide (In 2 O 3 ) accounts for 0.37% of panel weight (Guo et al., 2011). Given the aforementioned facts, a new social problem that involves waste LCDs has arisen. In January 2003, the European Union issued the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) (European Union, 2003) to prevent and control pollution from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). This directive promotes the reuse and recycling of waste to reduce waste discharge. In the same year, the Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 (2003 Cal ALS 526) (California US, 2003) was signed into law. This Californian law aimed to reduce the use of several hazardous substances in certain electronic products sold in the aforementioned state. Consumers should pay an electronic waste recycling fee of US$6 10 when buying Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TVs, LCD TVs, plasma display devices, and computers covered by the law. On 28 May 2010, the NYS Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act was promulgated (New York State US, 2010). This act requires manufacturers to provide free and convenient recycling of electronic waste to consumers in New York State. In Alberta, Canada, suppliers and retailers charge an electronic waste recycling fee of CAN$15 CAN$45, in accordance with the Electronic Products Recycling Regulation (Alberta Recycling Management Agency, 2005) when selling new TV and computer products. China is not an exception with respect to promulgating the regulations on WEEE. China s State Environmental Protection Administration issued the Administrative Measures for the 1 School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China 2 Department of Manufacturing Systems Engineering & Management, California State University, Northridge, CA, USA Corresponding author: Haihong Huang, School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Mailbox 124, Tunxi Road 193, Hefei , Peoples Republic of China. huanghaihong@hfut.edu.cn

2 Liu et al. 59 Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Electronic Waste (E-Waste) (State Environmental Protection Administration of China, 2007) in the year of 2007, which is applicable to prevention and control of environment pollution in disassembling, recycling, and disposing of E-Waste in China. In addition, in 2006, the Discarded Household Appliances and Electronic Products Pollution Control Technology Policy (Ministry of Environmental Protection of the P.R.C, 2006) stipulates how LCDs should be dismantled and disposed. For example, each LCD screen with a surface area larger than 100 cm 2 should be dismantled, classified, and separated in a non-destructive manner. Moreover, this policy also proposes control technologies for harmful substances in waste LCD products, such as mercury and PBDE. As shown above, recycling and disposing of waste LCDs is closely monitored by governments worldwide. The prediction of the amount of waste LCDs is the foundation for building an effective LCD recycling network, and a number of studies have been conducted to forecast the volumes of WEEE. The commonly used prediction methods include the market supply method, market supply A method, Stanford method, Carnegie Mellon method, time step method, estimate method, and Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) method (Feszty et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2013; Li et al., 2006; Simon et al., 2001; United Nations Environment Programme, 2007). The Stanford and Carnegie Mellon methods estimate quantities based on sales data and life span, which are suitable for IT products with a fast updating rate, such as computers. Meanwhile, the time step, estimate, and ICER methods are suitable for gradually eliminating products, which require long-term continuous data. Some studies predict waste quantity using the market supply method. The results of these studies show that the quantity of waste household appliances in Beijing doubled between 2005 and Furthermore, the quantities of waste PCs and TVs reached 2 million in India in 2010 (Jain and Sareen, 2006; Liu et al., 2006b). The stock-based model was applied to a quantity forecasting analysis of obsolete household appliances. The results of the analysis showed that approximately 76 million units (28000 kg) of obsolete household appliances would be generated from 2009 to 2050 in Nanjing, China (Zhang et al., 2013). Given that the market of electrical and electronic products (EEPs) becomes saturated after a certain period of growth, waste products tend to be generated. A dynamic capacity that varies over time was used for the extended logistic model; this model provided good prediction results when evaluations were performed on 22 selected products (Trappey and Wu, 2008). The extended logistic model and the modified market supply method were used to predict the future quantities of fluorescent lamps and the consequent waste from their production in China (Tan and Li, 2014). The ownership and quantity of waste generated by five types of household appliances, as well as the amounts of substances in TVs that reached the end of their life span, were estimated using time-series product flow analysis and substance flow analysis, respectively (Habuer et al., 2014). A specific research on waste LCDs has not yet been conducted. To reduce the perniciousness of hazardous substances in waste LCDs to the environment and to improve the reuse of LCD resources, waste status should be analysed, particularly in China, which is the world s most populous country. A study showed that nearly 60% of the generated WEEE was sold to private individual collectors and passed on to informal recycling processes (Liu et al., 2006a). In general, predicting the amount of waste is not only a basis for constructing a recycling network, but also a reliable basis for managing the wasted LCDs. Hence, this study forecasts the discarded amount of LCDs using the extended logistic model and the market supply A method. Methodology Based on the diagonal length of the screen, LCD is typically classified into two categories: (1) large-sized (over cm) and (2) small and medium-sized (under cm). These LCDs are used in different application fields. Large-sized LCDs are mainly used in computers and TV monitors, which require a high level of standardization. Non-standard products, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, digital photo frames, and portable navigation devices, mainly use small- and medium-sized LCDs. According to the analysis of DisplaySearch (Mobile Phone Display Shipment and Forecast Research, 2014), the largest application for small- and medium-sized panels is in the mobile phone industry, with a global shipment of over 2 billion units per year. Therefore, mobile phones are the main sources of waste small- and medium-sized LCDs. According to the current sales status of LCD products, prediction is divided into two parts. One is for large-sized LCD products, including LCD TVs, desktop computers, and notebook computers. The other is for small- and medium-sized LCD products, which are mainly represented by mobile phones. Prediction methods for sales volumes Traditional methods for forecasting sales, such as the exponential smoothing method, secondary exponential smoothing method, Holt exponential smoothing method, Winters exponential smoothing method, and geometric mean method, are only applied to data with regular or seasonal variation. These methods are relatively simple and do not consider the life spans of products. According to the latest researches, the growth curve model can provide a better trend prediction of production compared with other models. Based on the features of LCD products, applying the extended logistic model to predict the sales of LCD products is appropriate, as follows: k() t 1 d e N() t = m y() t = m = m + bt c 1 e 1+ c e at bt where N (t) is the estimated cumulative volumes for year t; m represents the total population; Y (t) is the estimated saturation of the specific products for year t; k (t) is capacity fluctuating over time; a, b, c, d are the parameters determined using a regression method and t is the number of years. (1)

3 60 Waste Management & Research 34(1) Product sales for year t are expressed as follows: D() t = N() t N( t 1 ) (2) Prediction methods for waste LCDs Considering the life span and the rapid upgrading of LCD products such as computers, mobile phones, and TVs, the market supply A method is more suitable than other methods for predicting the quantity of waste LCDs. The market supply method calculates waste quantities using sales data together with average product lifetimes. The market supply A method is the same as the market supply method, but uses a distribution about the mean product lifetime (Simon et al., 2001). Since the average life span is uncertain, in this market supply A method it assumes products have several different life spans, and the percentage of each life span is fixed. This model is based on the following assumptions (equations (3) and (4)). 1. EEPs are used by consumers until the end of their life span, and then they are completely disregarded. 2. The life span distribution of each EEP is ideally normal. 3. The life span and size of each EEP remains the same. 4. Each product only has one LCD panel. w = wl. = i. l i. l l il. Q Q S P (3) Gw = Gwl. = Qwl. al (4) l where Q w and Q w.l refer to the quantity of all waste LCD products and the type of LCD (l) products, respectively. S i.l and P i.l are the sales volumes for i years ago and the percentage of life span (i) of each type of product, respectively. G w and G w.l are the total area of all waste LCD products and the type of LCD (l) products, respectively. a l is the average area of LCD (l) products. Distribution evaluation of waste LCDs Compared with the regional distribution characteristic of product sales, the amount of waste LCD production exhibits a time lag. Different products have varying time lags. However, the current data on LCD product sales in each province is not mined, and the regional distribution characteristics of LCD product holdings are similar to their sales. The latter is positively correlated with home expenditures on household appliances, and thus, the percentage of consumer spending on household equipment and supplies in various provinces can be applied in lieu for waste LCD products in the entire country: Fi Di =, F F i = F i. s P i. s. (5) i i where D i and F i refer to the proportion of waste LCD products and consumer spending on household equipment and supplies, respectively, in province (i) in China. F i.s is the family per capita s consumer spending on household equipment and supplies of urban/rural residents and P i.s the number of urban/rural residents. Data collection Sales volumes of LCD products in China The Chinese EEPs industry is developing rapidly, and China is currently one of the largest LCD manufacturing countries in the world. Accordingly, the sales of LCD in China are also high. In particular, Table 1 presents the annual sales volumes of different types of LCD products in mainland China from 2002 to For largesized LCDs, the sales volumes of LCD TVs increased significantly from 2005 to In 2011, the number of LCD TVs sold was considerably beyond those of desktop and notebook computers. Life cycle of LCDs The service life of all kinds of LCD products follows a normal distribution (IMS, 1991), and the proportion of discarded products may be determined by normal distribution after standardisation. The average safe service life span and service time range of LCD products are obtained from the General Requirements on Fixed Number of Years of Safety Use and Recycling for Household and Similar Electrical Appliances (General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People s Republic of China & SAC, 2007), as shown in Table 2. Status of LCD manufacturing in China Although only one thin-film-transistor LCD (TFT-LCD) production line existed in China before 2000, the production capacity of TFT-LCD panels has rapidly expanded in mainland China in the past decade. The generation of TFT-LCD panels increased after the production lines of companies such as BOE and TIANMA became operational. In China, BOE has four production lines (4.5, 5, 6, and 8.5 generation lines), and TIANMA has three 4.5 and one 5 generation lines. Most LCD manufacturers are located in developed provinces. Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Beijing are the top three LCD-producing provinces in mainland China, accounting for 78% of the LCD production in the country. The leading manufacturers of LCD in mainland China, along with their corresponding production capacity, are presented in Table 3 (National Trust 2010). Results and discussions Predicting LCD sales volumes The sales volumes of the four types of LCD products are predicted using the extended logistic model (equations (1) and (2)) based on the statistical data provided in Table 1, and the results ( ) are illustrated in Table 4. Meanwhile, the accumulative total sales curves of the four types of LCD products are shown in Figures 1 and 2. To verify the reliability of the extended logistic model, the fitting correlation coefficient of the sales volumes of LCD products is tested, as shown in Table 5.

4 Liu et al. 61 Table 1. Sales volumes of LCD products in mainland China from 2002 to 2011 (million units). Year Large-sized Small- and medium-sized Desktop PC Notebook PC LCD TV Mobile phone Data obtained from the Yearbook of China Information Industry from 2003 to Table 2. Life span of LCD products (years). Product Average safe service life TV 8~10 6~12 PC 6 4~8 Mobile phone 2 1~3 Proportion of LCD product life span Time range for discarding Table 3. Leading LCD manufacturers in mainland China and their production capacity. Company Site Capacity planning (thousand sheets per month) TIANMA Shanghai 30 TIANMA Chengdu 30 TIANMA Wuhan 30 BOE Chengdu 30 SVA-NEC Shanghai 85 BOE Beijing 100 IVO Kunshan 140 CDY Shenzhen 60 BOE Hefei 90 CEC-Panda Nanjing 60 Samsung Suzhou 100 Sharp Nanjing 90 BOE Beijing 90 LGD Guangzhou 120 Longfei Kunshan 90 Guangxin Foshan 90 TCL-CDY Shenzhen 100 According to the range of product life span, the life period distribution is obtained, which follows a normal distribution with parameter X~ N( X,σ 2 ) for each type of LCD product. After standardising the normal distribution, the probabilities of LCD products discarded in a given lifetime are acquired, as shown in Table 6. Table 4. Prediction of sales volumes of electronic products in mainland China from 2012 to 2020 (million units). Year Desktop PC Notebook PC LCD TV Mobile phone Waste LCD generation predictions According to the digital industry data research, the average sizes of mobile phone, notebook PC, desktop PC, and LCD TV are , , , and centimeters, respectively. The aspect ratio of most LCD products is 16:9. Data on sales volumes and life span are considered in the market supply A method (equation (3)) to predict the quantity of generated waste LCD products. Then, the average area occupied by different types of waste LCD product is considered (equation (4)) to calculate the LCD waste area. Figures 3 and 4 present the quantities and the total display area of three types of large-sized waste LCD products, with the specific data provided in Table 7. In terms of waste quantities, the total quantities of waste LCDs in China were pieces in 2011, including large pieces and small pieces; and it is expected to reach pieces in 2020, including large pieces and small pieces. The total number will increase 5.6 times, with 97% being small- and medium-sized products. The main source of large-sized waste LCD products in 2011 was desktop computers, whereas only 1.5% of discarded LCD products were from TVs. However, LCD TVs are predicted

5 62 Waste Management & Research 34(1) Figure 1. Accumulative total sales of large-sized LCD products in mainland China from 2002 to Figure 2. Accumulative total sales of small- and medium-sized LCD products in mainland China from 2004 to Table 5. Fitting correlation coefficient results of LCD product sales. SSE R 2 Adjusted R 2 RMSE Desktop PC 1.39E Notebook PC 7.49E LCD TV 1.56E Mobile phone 1.72E LCD: liquid crystal display; RMSE: root mean square error; SSE: sum of squares for error.

6 Liu et al. 63 Table 6. The probabilities of LCD products discarded in the given life span (%). Lifetime (year) Mobile phone PC Lifetime (year) TV Figure 3. Prediction of the quantity of large-sized waste LCD products in mainland China from 2011 to 2020 (million units). to make up the bulk of large-sized waste LCD products in 2020 (i.e. 53%), whereas the percentage of desktop computers will be only 16.4%. The annual increase rate of discarded desktop computers is low, with only 4.17%. By contrast, the quantities of waste laptop computers exhibit a staggering increase rate of 34.55% annually. The quantities of discarded LCD TVs are increasing significantly at an annual rate of 85.28%. In 2011, the total display area of waste LCDs in China amounted to m 2, including m 2 large-sized LCDs and m 2 small- and medium-sized LCDs. By 2020, the total area is expected to reach m 2, with m 2 large-sized and m 2 small- and mediumsized LCDs, i.e. an increase of times. Regarding waste area (i.e. the surface area of the waste LCD panels), the ratio of largesized waste LCDs to the total area will increase from 41.38% in 2011 to 78.08% in 2020, whereas that of small- and mediumsized waste LCDs will decrease from 58.62% to 21.92%. Largesized waste LCDs mainly came from desktop computers in 2011, which accounted for 76.48% of the total area. LCD TVs will become the largest component of waste LCD products in 2020, with approximately 91.56%. Among the three kinds of large-sized LCD products, the sales volumes of LCD TVs significantly influence the status of waste LCD products. The sales volumes of LCD TVs are noticeably higher than those of computers. In terms of waste display area, the scrapping trend of LCD products, in general, is nearly the same as that of LCD TVs. Considering that the sales volumes of mobile phones are higher than those of the other three products, mobile phone is a crucial indicator in determining the contribution Figure 4. Prediction of the total display area (km 2 ) of largesized waste LCD products in mainland China from 2011 to to total quantity of waste LCDs. Nevertheless, TV sales volumes still have the largest impact on the waste area, considering that the screen area of LCD TVs is approximately 10 times larger than that of computers and 100 times larger than that of mobile phones. In addition, with the further application of LCDs in various fields of electronic products, the increased variety of products, the expanded scale of LCD production, and the enlarged average display area of LCDs will change the situation. Status of waste LCD distribution in China Equation (5) is used to calculate the waste LCD ratio in different provinces based on household appliances consumption expenditure of urban/rural residents in each province and the urban/rural resident population (the data are from the China Statistical Yearbook in the year of 2012) (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2013). Then, the chart of the distribution of waste LCDs in China is drawn from the combination of the total waste display area and waste LCD ratio, as shown in Figure 5. It can be seen that the waste area is distributed differently across the country, with the majority of the areas located in populous provinces, such as Sichuan and Henan, and some developed provinces in southeast coastal China, whereas the waste display area is relatively small in the western region. Guangdong, which accounts for approximately 11% of the total amount, is the province with the largest waste LCD area. Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, and Zhejiang are the other top five waste LCD-generating provinces in mainland China, accounting for a total of approximately 45%. By contrast, the waste LCD display area in Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Hainan provinces are relatively less.

7 64 Waste Management & Research 34(1) Table 7. Prediction of the quantity (million units) and the total display area (km 2 ) of wasted LCDs in mainland China from 2011 to Year Desktop PC Quantity Area Notebook PC Quantity Area LCD TV Quantity Area Mobile Phone Quantity Area Figure 5. Distribution of waste LCD products in mainland China. Recommendations for waste LCD recycling treatment Inferior-quality products from LCD production lines are also a major source of waste LCDs. After 2 months of mass production, the quality rate of the first 6 generation production line of BOE in China is approximately 95%. Meanwhile, that of the 8.5 generation line is lower, at only 85% (Zhu et al., 2013). On 20 August 2008, the State Council, China s cabinet, issued Regulation on Recovery Processing of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products (State Council of China, 2008), which regulates the recycling of waste EEPs in order to promote comprehensive utilisation of resources and circular economic development in China. In particular, these regulations point out that the government should practice multi-channel recycling and centralised disposal of waste EEPs. In order to enable easier collection, transport, and disassembly of waste LCDs, the site and management areas of LCD recycling factories are planned based on the distribution of waste LCDs across national and domestic LCD production enterprises, as shown in Figure 6. It can be seen that the recycling factories should be set up in Sichuan for southwest China, Guangdong for south China and Jiangsu for east China. Considering geographic locations and production enterprises, the recycling centre for north China is located in Beijing, which is responsible for three North-eastern provinces, the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and Shandong province, though Shandong produces a higher waste quantity among these regions. And the processing centre in Henan province is mainly responsible for central China, including Henan, Shanxi, Hubei, northern Anhui, and other regions. These suggestions can be very useful for the government to plan the LCD recycling networks. But there are some limits and considerations. (1) Recycling status in mainland China. Though recovery of LCDs began to take shape in developed countries, the waste LCDs are mainly disposed of by dismantling in mainland China, lacking techniques on valuable resources recovery, and toxic and harmful substances treatment. Waste LCD panels can only be piled up in warehouses after being dismantled. Meanwhile, it is a labour-intensive process, so labour cost is a vital factor when selecting sites for LCDs recycling centres.

8 Liu et al. 65 Figure 6. Production enterprises and recycling factories of LCD products in mainland China. (2) Environmental issues. The commonly used methods in the recycling of waste LCD panels include organic solvent extraction, incineration, pyrolysis, and acid immersion. Large amounts of waste water, waste gas, and industrial residue will be generated in these processes. The related environmental issues cannot be ignored, which should also be considered when selecting the sites of LCD recycling plants, for example, locating the sites in rural areas away from the population centres. Conclusions LCD is widely used in EEPs and its potential market is expanding. Consequently, public attention and concern over the potential health risks of waste LCDs have increased. To improve understanding of this issue, the sales volumes of LCD products and the waste situation are predicted using the extended logistic model and the market supply A method. The distribution of waste LCD products among provinces in mainland China is also evaluated, based on household appliance consumption expenditure. The results show that LCD waste exhibits a rapid growth trend and that mobile phones will remain as the main source of waste LCDs. However, large-sized LCD products, particularly LCD TVs, are obviously increasing. Seven out of ten products in the total waste display area of LCD products is predicted to be from large-sized LCDs in From the perspective of regional distributions in China, LCD generation will be concentrated in the developed, south east coastal area of China and then the central part and finally, the western part. The entire distribution presents a ladder form. Based on the predictions, waste LCDs recycling networks, including multilevel collection stations, recycling and recovery mills, and disposal factories, can be built. Therefore, a reverse logistics system, which includes collection, recycling, recovery, and disposal, will be implemented. As a result, the recovery rate of LCD waste can be improved, and the environment pollution caused by LCD waste can be reduced. Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is financially supported by the national 863 plans projects of China [No. 2013AA040205] and Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China [NCET ]. References Alberta Recycling Management Agency of Canada (2005) Electronic Products Recycling Regulation. Alberta, Canada. California US (2003) Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 (2003 Cal ALS 526) (EWRA). DisplayResearch (2014) Mobile Phone Display Shipment and Forecast Research. Available at: displaysearch/hs.xsl/quarterly_mobile_phone_shipment_and_forecast_ report.asp (accessed 5 February 2015). European Union (2003) Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (2002/96/EC) (WEEE). Feszty K, Murchison C, Baird J, et al (2003) Assessment of the quantities of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in Scotland. Waste Management & Research 21: General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People s Republic of China & Standardization Administration of China(SAC) (2007) General Requirements on Fixed Number of Years of Safety Use and Recycling for Household and Similar Electrical Appliances (GB/T ). Guo YW, Liu JY, Qiao Q, et al (2011) Disposal and management of waste TFT-LCD. Journal of Environmental Engineering Technology 2:

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