Watch more, waste more? A stock-driven dynamic material flow analysis of metals and plastics in TV sets in China

The growing generation of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in developing countries has attracted increasing attention due to its potential health and environmental impacts and high recycling potentials. For example, along with the rapid economic development, China has been experiencing a sharp increase in the production and use of TV sets and a quick transition from old fashion cathode ray tube (CRT) ones to flat panel display (FPT) ones. Understanding such dynamics would be important for predicting future WEEE generation. In this article, we developed a dynamic (from 1992 to 2040), bottom-up (TV sets by module by material), and stock-driven (using future possession as a driver) material flow analysis model to investigate the amount of metals and plastics embodied in obsolete TV sets in the future. We found that the total generation of obsolete TV sets in China will reach 142 million units by 2040, in which FPD TV sets contribute more after they started to dominate the market after 2009. These growing obsolete TV sets would mean potentially large amount of embodied materials that can be recycled. While most of the embodied precious metals (e.g., gold, silver, and palladium), common metals (e.g., iron, aluminum, zinc, and tin), toxic metals (e.g., mercury, barium, and antimony), and plastics will increase in future, copper and nickel show a first decrease then increase trend, and lead will be gradually phased out in obsolete TV sets. Our results could help inform waste management and recycling strategies and relevant decision makers (e.g., governmental agencies, manufactures, and recyclers) in the TV sets sector in China. Such a stock-driven and bottom-up approach can also be used for other e-waste issues and other countries.