Case Study: Plastic Panel Remanufacture or Recycling

Transcription

1 Case Study: Plastic Panel Remanufacture or Recycling

2 Executive Summary: GnoSys Ecometrics, under the guise of the Polymer Research Centre, was commissioned by a consortium lead by Xerox to put undertake a comparative study of the potential benefits of plastic panel remanufacture with materials recycling. The novelty of this study was to carry out this comparison over several life cycles. This was in response to internal concern on sustainability and environmental impact of remanufacture versus materials recycling and if better performing options could be identified. The main finding was that the environmental impact difference is marginal between re-manufacturing plastic panels and recycling the material they contain. However, it was established that remanufacturing by refurbishment costs less when new production includes 25% or more of recyclate from materials recycling of panel polymer. Furthermore, if the recyclate rate is further increased to between 50 and 55%, there are significant additional advantages of a near 50% reduction in toxicity and almost 80% reduction in pollution of the water used in production.

3 Background: This case study focuses on the environmental impacts of reuse and recycling of plastic panels from electronic equipment. All types of office equipment, such as computers, fax machines and telephones are designed using predominantly plastic panels for aesthetic reasons. The same is true of enterprise photocopiers. These are usually leased and provide an opportunity for the owner to remanufacture them at end of life or to recycle them. Although robust, plastic panels deteriorate during usage due to wear and tear (knocks, scratches, etc) and due to dirt and some environmental ageing. When equipment is recovered from customers for reprocessing, the panels are removed and put through a repair process in which scratches and repairable damage are filled and sanded as appropriate, and re-sprayed using water based paints. Panels which cannot be recovered and repaired in this manner can be sent for material recovery, whereby they are sorted by material type, decontaminated to remove paper labels and metallic fixtures such as captive fasteners etc, and granulated for use as a recyclate feedstock. A driver towards recycling is the WEEE Directive which focuses on producer responsibility and encourages product take back. If line of sight with the product can be sustained, as it is in this case, closed-loop re-use and recycling can be undertaken with significant potentials costs and environmental impact savings. However, the painting of panels can potentially contribute to contamination for recycling in later lifecycles. It may be preferable to design panels to be unpainted and replaced with new panels made from a high percentage of recyclate or to repair or remanufacture after the first cycle by painting, which reduces the utility of the panels for future uses. After painting it is likely that the second life of the panel will end with it being landfilled or used in energy production. Before the study the practice was that 23% of the returned panels were recycled, the rest were landfilled. So landfill was used as a benchmark option. There is also the option of energy from waste, as opposed to landfill, and the model constructed enabled the proportion going to different fates to be varied. If granulation of the panel is undertaken the granulate can be used in closed-loop recycling, i.e. remoulded into the original design, or supplied to the market for other applications, i.e. open-loop recycling.

4 Methodology: The CHAMP* methodology, the forerunner of EcoPoint, was used to assess and compare the re-use and recycling of plastic panels used on photocopying machines. The whole life cycle of each scenario was accounted for and full environmental and economic costs calculated. CHAMP is a methodology and set of decision support tools that quantifies sustainable options for operational, product and materials management along whole supply chains. It is an approach which addresses technical, economic, environmental, logistical and other criteria allowing decision-makers to critically compare alternative options and select those offering the best financial and environmental performance. The approach taken was to identify a particular panel which is used in several different photocopiers and therefore represented a large component and material mass flow. Currently the panels are recovered after use, refurbished and then reassembled onto new photocopiers. The client was considering the incorporation of a granulation step in their asset recovery operations so that new panels can be remoulded from those recovered. As a consequence of this, two scenarios were considered in this case study: 1. No painting of the panel and 100% particulation of the polymer (Recycling) % re-use of the panel via filling and painting (Refurbishment) A range of scenarios were examined for different percentages between refurbishment and recycling. The system boundary includes all of the material production, product manufacture, transport logistics and end of life options for the panels, i.e. a cradle to grave approach. It does not, however, consider the use phase in the assessment as it is neutral in the assessment. The environmental impacts of this study were assessed using the CML method, giving the following impact categories: Air acidification Ozone layer depletion Eutrophication Aquatic and terrestrial ecotoxicity Human toxicity Greenhouse gas effect *CHAMP is still available for use as a methodology and is being integrated into the EcoPoint tool.

5 System boundary in this study Panel production

6 Results: Although the difference in environmental impacts between panel remanufacture and re-use and recycling is marginal, the key conclusions are: Panels re-use by refurbishment costs less than recycling where 25% of the recyclate is used in panel production. Panel re-use via refurbishment is less environmentally polluting than panel recycling under the same conditions. Sensitivity analysis on some of the variables and assumptions made, allowed potential future scenarios to be explored and the following recommendations to be made: Increasing the rate of recyclate use, into panel production, to above 26% results in recycling becoming economically more favourable than the re-use by refurbishment. The environmental impact of recycling is lower than that of re-use by refurbishment if the recycle rate into panel production is improved to between 50 and 55%. A reduction of almost 50% in the impact on human toxicity and almost 80% of the water eutrophication can be achieved if the recycling was to become totally closed-loop with no virgin polymer input. Additionally, the mass of high quality material available from the take back of plastic panels could be used to displace the use of virgin materials in other components used in the electronic products manufactured by the company. For components where remanufacture was not possible this would have a positive effect of reducing both economic and environmental impacts due to recycling. The economic comparison of the two scenarios

7 Impact to Air Acidification of Recycling vs. Refurbishment Cumulative Cost over Multiple Life Cycles

8 For more information visit Gnosys Global Ltd, Frederick Sanger Road Surrey Research Park Guildford GU2 7YD UK Tel: + 44(0)