Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
4471421 Waste Management 2015 9 Pages PDF
Abstract

•Life cycle assessment of electronic waste recycling is quantified.•Key factors for reducing the overall environmental impact are indentified.•End-life disposal processes provide significant environmental benefits.•Efficiently reduce the improper disposal amount of e-waste is highly needed.•E-waste incineration can generate significant environmental burden.

Life cycle assessment was conducted to estimate the environmental impact of electronic waste (e-waste) treatment. E-waste recycling with an end-life disposal scenario is environmentally beneficial because of the low environmental burden generated from human toxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, and marine ecotoxicity categories. Landfill and incineration technologies have a lower and higher environmental burden than the e-waste recycling with an end-life disposal scenario, respectively. The key factors in reducing the overall environmental impact of e-waste recycling are optimizing energy consumption efficiency, reducing wastewater and solid waste effluent, increasing proper e-waste treatment amount, avoiding e-waste disposal to landfill and incineration sites, and clearly defining the duties of all stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers, retailers, recycling companies, and consumers).

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Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
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