Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of waste mobile phone recycling in China

The number of waste mobile phones (WMPs) has increased dramatically in recent years. A complete recycling network is being developed in China, and the WMP recycling process will need to be industrialized. WMPs are valuable, but the potential environmental pressures resulting from recycling processes are currently not well understood. Three recycling scenarios were constructed to represent different current WMP treatment methods, and life-cycle assessments of the environmental impacts of the scenarios were performed. All three scenarios offered environmental benefits, but the scale of the benefits decreased in the order scenario 3 > scenario 2 > scenario 1. Recycling printed circuit boards and metals in the lithium batteries, possible because of the modularization process, was most environmentally beneficial. Environmental impacts were divided into 10 subcategories: recycling decreased the impacts of acidification and nitrification, carcinogenic effects, climate change, ecotoxicity, fossil fuel use, inorganic respiratory effects, and mineral effects more than the impacts of the other categories. The industrialization of WMP recycling should be based on a “manual disassembly plus modularized recycling” model (scenario 3). These results will allow decision-makers involved in the disposal of WMPs to improve the efficiency with which resources (including energy) can be recycled from WMPs.