environmental impact assessment of the electronic waste … · environmental impact assessment of...

Faculteit Bio-IngenieurswetenschappenAcademiejaar 2013-2014

Environmental Impact Assessment of theElectronic Waste (E-waste) Recycling System

Emile Van EygenPromotor: Prof. Dr. ir. Jo DewulfPromotor: Luc WaigneinTutor: MSc. Phuong Ha TranTutor: Dr. ir. Steven De Meester

Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad vanMaster in de bio-ingenieurswetenschappen: milieutechnologie

Confidentiality

Both the author and the promotors do not give the permission to use this thesisfor consultation or to copy parts of it for personal use, unless explicit permissionhas been obtained from Galloo and Ghent University. In case of permission, theuse is subject to copyright laws, more specifically the source needs to be explicitlymentioned when using results from this thesis.Ghent, June 2014

Zowel de auteur als de promotoren geven geen toelating om deze thesis voor consul-tatie beschikbaar te stellen of delen ervan te kopiëren voor persoonlijk gebruik, tenzijhiertoe uitdrukkelijk toestemming verkregen werd van Galloo en Universiteit Gent.Ingeval toestemming valt het gebruik onder de beperkingen van het auteursrecht, inhet bijzonder met betrekking tot de verplichte bronvermelding bij het aanhalen vande resultaten in deze thesis.Gent, juni 2014

Prof. dr. ir. J. Dewulf L. Waignein(Universiteit Gent) (Galloo)

MSc. P. H. Tran Dr. ir. S. De Meester(Universiteit Gent) (Universiteit Gent)

E. Van Eygen(Universiteit Gent)

iii

Preface

v

Contents

List of Abbreviations and Symbols xi

List of Figures xiii

List of Tables xvii

Abstract xix

Samenvatting xxiii

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Study 32.1 Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1.1 Waste Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.1.2 Environmental Performance Measurement Methods . . . . . . 7

2.1.2.1 Material Flow Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1.2.2 Life Cycle Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1.2.3 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.2 Electronic Waste: Non-technical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.2.1 Metals and Plastics Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.2.1.1 Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.2.1.2 Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2.2 Market Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.2.3 Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.2.3.1 WEEE Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142.2.4 The Situation in Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2.3 Electronic Waste: Technical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.3.1 Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.3.2 Take-back and Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.3.2.1 Dismantling and Mechanical Processing . . . . . . . 182.3.2.2 Metallurgical Recovery of Metals . . . . . . . . . . . 202.3.2.3 Plastics Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.4 LCA Studies on Electronic Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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viii Contents

2.4.1 The Swiss Take-back and Recycling System for WEEE . . . . 21

2.4.2 Metal Recovery from High-grade WEEE . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Objectives 23

4 Materials and Methods 25

4.1 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.1.1 The E-waste Recycling System in Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.1.2 System Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.1.3 Functional Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4.1.4 Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.2 Life Cycle Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.2.1 Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.2.2 Process Description of the Galloo Recycling Plant . . . . . . 28

4.2.2.1 Shredder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

4.2.2.2 LTRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

4.2.2.3 Flotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4.2.2.4 Plastics Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4.2.2.5 Post Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4.2.2.6 Internal Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4.2.2.7 Wastewater Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4.2.2.8 Air Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.2.3 Process Description of the Background Recycling Processes . 33

4.2.3.1 Iron/Steel Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.2.3.2 Aluminium Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.2.3.3 Copper Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.2.3.4 Precious Metals Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4.2.3.5 Plastics Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.2.3.6 Plastics Incineration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.2.3.7 Other Recycled Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4.2.4 Estimations and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.2.4.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.2.4.2 Shredder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.2.4.3 LTRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.2.4.4 Flotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.2.4.5 Plastics Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.3 Material Flow Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.4 (Exergetic) Life Cycle Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

4.4.1 Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environment 40

4.4.2 Carbon Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Contents ix

5 Results and Discussion 435.1 Galloo Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

5.1.1 Life Cycle Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435.1.2 Material Flow Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435.1.3 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485.1.4 Carbon Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

5.2 Recycling Compared to Landfill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525.2.1 Considered Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5.2.1.1 Chromium Steel 18/8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525.2.1.2 Copper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525.2.1.3 Zinc Oxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535.2.1.4 Precious Metals, Nickel and Lead . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.5 Aluminium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.6 PP/PE/PS/ABS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.7 Reducing Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.8 Cement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.9 Road Aggregate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.2.1.10 Heat and Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5.2.2 Results of the Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555.2.2.1 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . 555.2.2.2 Carbon Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

6 Conclusions 63

7 Recommendations for Further Research 65

Bibliography 67

A Recupel Collection Results 77

B Galloo Unit Process Schemes 79

C Water Contents 83

D Partial Mass Balances per Material Category 87

List of Abbreviations and Symbols

ABS Acrylonitrile Butadiene StyreneCEENE Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural EnvironmentCRT Cathode Ray TubeDC DowncyclingEEE Electrical and Electronic EquipmentELCA Exergetic Life Cycle AssessmentEPR Extended Producer ResponsibilityER Energy RecoveryEU European UnionGDP Gross Domestic ProductLCA Life Cycle AssessmentLD Landfill DisposalLHV Lower Heating ValueLTRB Ligne pour le Traitement du Résidue de Broyage:

shredder-residue treatment lineMFA Material Flow AnalysisMJex Megajoules of exergyMR Material RecyclingMSWI Municipal Solid Waste IncinerationPC Personal ComputerPCB Printed Circuit BoardPE PolyethylenePM Precious MetalsPP PolypropylenePS PolystyrenePVC Polyvinyl ChlorideRDF Refuse-Derived FuelRoHS Restriction of Hazardous SubstancesSBS Styrene Butadiene StyreneSLF Shredder Light FractionSNF Shredder Non-ferrous FractionTD Thermal Disposal

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xii List of Abbreviations and Symbols

WEEE Waste Electrical and Electronic EquipmentWFD Waste Framework DirectiveWWTP Wastewater Treatment Plant

List of Figures

2.1 Global material extraction versus world Gross Domestic Product (GDP)(Krausmann et al., 2009; UNEP, 2011). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.2 Trends in global resource extraction, GDP and material intensity,1980-2008 (SERI, 2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.3 The four stages of an LCA study (International Organization for Stan-dardization, 2006a). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.4 Results of the criticality assessment. The critical raw materials areshown in the red shaded area of the graph (European Commission,2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.5 Overview of the WEEE collection targets, as set by the new WEEEDirective (Huisman and Baldé, 2013). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2.6 WEEE material composition (Widmer et al., 2005). . . . . . . . . . . 172.7 Scheme of the first steps in a typical e-waste recycling process (Swedish

Environmental Protection Agency, 2011). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4.1 Market structure of electronics and waste electronics in Belgium. TheScope area indicates the focus of this work. Adapted from Huismanand Baldé (2013). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4.2 Schematic overview of the Galloo process, with the system boundariesof the foreground system and background system. The truck drawingsshow the internal transport steps that are taken into account. PM:precious metals: Au, Ag, Pd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4.3 Overview of the Galloo process, with all input and output streams,and their respective origins or destinations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4.4 Flowsheet for secondary copper production (Krippner et al., 1999). . 344.5 Overview of the Umicore integrated smelter and refinery plant (Hagelüken,

2005). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

5.1 Dry mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant. . . . . 455.2 Sankey diagram presenting the material flow analysis, indicating the

material and operation categories, as well as the geographical destina-tions. MR: material recycling; ER: energy recovery; DC: downcycling;TD: thermal disposal; LD: landfill disposal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

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xiv List of Figures

5.3 Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo mechanical separationplant per contributing utility or process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

5.4 Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo mechanical separationplant per impact category. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

5.5 Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo Plastics plant, comparedwith the total CEENE for the Galloo mechanical separation plant. . 51

5.6 Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the Galloo mechanicalseparation plant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

5.7 Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the Galloo Plastics plant,compared with the total Carbon Footprint of the mechanical separa-tion plant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5.8 Scheme of the comparison between the e-waste recycling and landfillscenario, the latter with virgin production of the materials and servicesprovided through recycling. The legend indicates which operationcategory is used to produce the secondary product. . . . . . . . . . . 53

5.9 Results of the CEENE analysis for the recycling scenario, with theGalloo mechanical separation plant, Galloo Plastics and the post-Galloo treatements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5.10 Results of the CEENE analysis for the post-Galloo treatments. The‘sum rest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the rightpane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

5.11 Results of the CEENE analysis for the landfill scenario. The ‘sumrest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the right pane. 58

5.12 Comparison of the CEENE results between the e-waste recycling andthe landfill scenario. The avoided burden is the difference between thelandfill and recycling scenario. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5.13 Comparison of the CEENE required for the primary or secondaryproduction of one kilogram of steel, copper and aluminium. . . . . . 59

5.14 Comparison of the CEENE results between the impacts of the Galloomechanical separation plant together with Galloo Plastics, and theavoided burdens achieved by the recycling chain. . . . . . . . . . . . 60

5.15 Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the post-Galloo treat-ments. The ‘sum rest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatmentson the right pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

5.16 Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the landfill scenario. The‘sum rest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the rightpane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

5.17 Comparison of the Carbon Footprint results between the e-waste re-cycling and the landfill scenario. The avoided burden is the differencebetween the landfill and recycling scenario. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

List of Figures xv

A.1 Recupel collection results expressed in tonnes for the different elec-tronic waste categories from 2001 until 2012. The numbers of 2001were based on the last six months of that year (Recupel, 2012). . . . 77

B.1 Overview of the unit processes in the Shredder module (Zerdirator). 79B.2 Overview of the unit processes in the LTRB module. . . . . . . . . . 80B.3 Overview of the unit processes in the Flotation module. . . . . . . . 81B.4 Overview of the unit processes in the Plastics Line module. . . . . . 82

D.1 Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant forferrous material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

D.2 Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant foraluminium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

D.3 Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant forother non-ferrous metals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

D.4 Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant fororganics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

D.5 Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant forminerals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

List of Tables

4.1 Shredder output composition estimations. The stream numbers andnames can be found on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on themodule scheme (Figure B.1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4.2 LTRB output composition estimations. The stream numbers andnames can be found on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on themodule scheme (Figure B.2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.3 Flotation output composition estimations. The stream numbers andnames can be found on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on themodule scheme (Figure B.3). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.4 Composition of the low-grade PCBs coming from the Flotation (Mecucciand Scott, 2002). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5.1 Life cycle inventory for the Galloo mechanical separation plant andGalloo Plastics, with a functional unit of 100 000 kg OVE rest treated. 44

5.2 Composition of the incoming OVE rest waste stream. . . . . . . . . . 465.3 Summary of the operational destinations for each material category

(%). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475.4 Summary of the operational and geographical destinations of the out-

puts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475.5 CEENE results of the Galloo mechanical separation plant and the

Galloo Plastics plant (MJ exergy / 100 000 kg OVE rest treated). . . 495.6 CEENE results of the Post-Galloo operations and total CEENE re-

sults for the recycling scenario, compared with the CEENE results forthe landfill scenario (MJ exergy / 100 000 kg OVE rest treated). Theavoided burden is the difference between the landfill and recycling sce-nario. PM: Precious Metals; LU: Luxembourg; NL: the Netherlands;IT: Italy; BE: Belgium; CN: China; SE: Sweden; EU: Europe; GLO:Global. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

C.1 Water contents for the output streams from the Shredder. The num-bers and names of the streams refer to those on the schemes. . . . . 83

C.2 Water contents for the output streams from the LTRB. The numbersand names of the streams refer to those on the schemes. . . . . . . . 84

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xviii List of Tables

C.3 Water contents for the output streams from the Flotation. The num-bers and names of the streams refer to those on the schemes. . . . . 85

C.4 Water contents for the output streams from the Plastics Line. Thenumbers and names of the streams refer to those on the schemes. . . 86

Abstract

The goal of this study is the assessment of the environmental performance of the elec-tronic waste recycling chain in Belgium, which comprises a mechanical separationstep and further end-processing of the separated materials. This is done in coopera-tion with Galloo Recycling, where a sub-stream of the e-waste flow is mechanicallyseparated.

A material flow analysis is carried out to assess the paths the different materials takethrough the treatment process, as well as to establish how much these materials arerecovered and recycled. The geographical location where this recycling is performedis also investigated.

The environmental performance is evaluated using an (exergetic) life cycle assess-ment. This is done for the process at Galloo itself, and additionally for the furtherend-processing steps carried out after Galloo. This total impact for the recyclingchain is then compared with a scenario where all e-waste is landfilled, and all ma-terials and services (e.g. electricity) produced through the recycling operations aremanufactured from virgin materials.

The (exergetic) life cycle assessment is done in two ways. First of all, the resourceconsumption of the processes was evaluated, using the cumulative exergy extractionfrom the natural environment (CEENE), applying the concept of exergy, which isthe useful part of energy. In this way, the total exergy consumed in all steps of theproduction chain is quantified. Second of all, the emissions of greenhouse gases andthus the global warming potential are assessed using the Carbon Footprint.

For the mechanical separation at Galloo and the plastics recycling at sister companyGalloo Plastics, data were collected during multiple company visits, meetings ande-mail communication. Data for the utilities used at Galloo and the further end-processing of the products leaving Galloo on the other hand were obtained fromEcoinvent, which is a life cycle analysis database.

The material flow analysis of the Galloo mechanical separation plant shows that 91%of ferrous material, 100% of aluminium, 100% of other non-ferrous metals (mainlycopper), and 44% of organics are sent to material recycling, which amounts to 73%

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xx Abstract

of the total incoming waste flow, predominantly performed in Belgium (7%) and therest of Europe (91%). The rest of the ferrous flow is downcycled, while the remainingorganics are sent to energy recover, both as high (7%) and low (32%) quality fuel,as well as downcycling (9%) and landfill (8%). Finally, minerals are downcycled(42%) and landfilled (58%).

The CEENE results for the Galloo mechanical separation plant indicate that theShredder has the highest impact of the main modules, followed by the Flotation,LTRB, post treatments and Plastics Line. The Shredder treats by far the mostmaterial though, and the Flotation has the highest impact per treated mass. Theimpacts are mainly caused by the electricity use, resulting in high contributionsfor fossil fuels and nuclear energy consumption. For the LTRB and especially theFlotation though, there is a large contribution for the impact of the density medium,which causes a higher abiotic renewable resources and land and biotic resourcesconsumption. The plant infrastructure has a high impact as well, mainly made upout of fossil fuels and land and biotic resources consumption, while the WWTP,internal transport and waste disposal processes contribute minimally.

The Galloo Plastics plant has a comparable impact as the total of the mechanicalseparation plant, although it treats much less material, because of the high energyrequirements of the melting of the plastics, resulting in a high contribution for fossilfuels and nuclear energy consumption.

In the total recycling chain, the impacts are caused for over 96% by treatmentoperations performed after Galloo. The impact of the latter is dominated by thesecondary steel production (almost 97%), composed for the largest part out of fossilfuels consumption, together with mainly abiotic renewable resources and nuclearenergy. The secondary aluminium, copper and cement production account for almostall of the rest of the impacts, all of them being dominated by fossil fuels consumption.

The same pattern is seen for the landfill scenario, where the landfilling itself does nothave a significant resource impact. Here, primary steel is again dominant (almost75% of the total impact). However, primary plastics, almost completely composed offossil fuels consumption, and primary aluminium, with a high contribution of fossilfuels, abiotic renewable resources and nuclear energy, have a high impact as well,compared with the secondary production of these materials.

When the two scenarios are compared, the recycling turns out to be more sustainablefrom a resource perspective (27% less CEENE impact). This avoided burden ispredominantly accomplished in a lesser fossil fuels consumption.

The Carbon Footprint results show the same pattern as the CEENE results for theGalloo plants, as much of the CEENE impacts were caused by fossil fuels consump-tion. The same applies for the results of the post-Galloo treatments, although the

xxi

incineration of plastics has a much higher contribution compared with its contribu-tion in the CEENE, as this activity emits a lot of CO2. The Carbon Footprint ofthe landfill scenario shows the same pattern as the CEENE results as well. However,here the impact of the landfilling of the waste stream itself is elevated, because ofthe digesting of the organic compounds in e-waste releasing greenhouse gases.

Overall, the recycling scenario is again more environmentally sound compared withthe landfill scenario (34% lower Carbon Footprint), this time from a climate changeperspective.

Samenvatting

Het doel van deze studie is de beoordeling van de milieuprestaties van de recyclagevan elektronisch afval in België. Deze recyclage bestaat uit een mechanische schei-dingsstap en verdere eindverwerking. Dit werk wordt uitgevoerd in samenwerkingmet Galloo Recycling, waar een deelstroom van het elektronisch afval mechanischgescheiden wordt.

Om de verschillende wegen te beoordelen die de verscheidene materialen nemendoorheen het proces van Galloo wordt een materiaalstroomanalyse uitgevoerd, omde hoeveelheid vast te stellen waarmee deze materialen herwonnen en gerecycleerdworden. Ook de locatie waar deze recyclage wordt uitgevoerd wordt onderzocht.

De milieuprestaties worden geëvalueerd door middel van een (exergetische) levens-cyclusanalyse, dit voor de processen bij Galloo zelf, en ook voor de verdere eindver-werking die uitgevoerd worden na Galloo. Deze totale impact voor de recyclageketenwordt dan vergeleken met het scenario waarbij al het elektronisch afval wordt gestort.Alle materialen en diensten (bijvoorbeeld elektriciteit) die het resultaat zijn van derecyclage, worden in dit laatste scenario dan geleverd door productie uit primairegrondstoffen.

De (exergetische) levenscyclusanalyse wordt op twee manieren uitgevoerd. Ten eerstewordt het grondstoffenverbruik geëvalueerd, door middel van de cumulatieve exergie-extractie uit het natuurlijk milieu (CEENE), waarbij het concept van exergie gebruiktwordt, dat de bruikbare fractie van energie aanduidt. Zo kan de totale exergie dieverbruikt wordt bij alle stappen van de productieketen berekend worden. Ten tweedeworden de emissies van broeikasgassen, en zo het potentieel voor klimaatopwarming,beoordeeld door middel van de CO2-voetafdruk.

Voor de mechanische scheiding bij Galloo en de recyclage van plastics bij zusterbedrijfGalloo Plastics werden data verzameld tijdens meerdere bedrijfsbezoeken, vergader-ingen en e-mail communicatie. Data voor de nutsvoorzieningen bij Galloo en deverdere eindverwerking van de producten die Galloo verlaten werden verkregen uitde levenscyclusanalysedatabase Ecoinvent.

De materiaalstroomanalyse voor de mechanische scheidingsinstallatie bij Galloo toontdat 91% van het ferromateriaal, 100% van het aluminium, 100% van de andere

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xxiv Samenvatting

non-ferrometalen (vooral koper), en 44% van het organisch materiaal worden gere-cycleerd, wat zorgt voor een totaal van 73% van de totale inkomende afvalstroom,vooral uitgevoerd in België (7%) en de rest van Europa (91%). De rest van het fer-romateriaal wordt gedowncycled, terwijl het overblijvende organisch materiaal ofwelwordt verbrand met energierecuperatie, als een hoge (7%) of lage (32%) kwaliteits-brandstof, of wordt gedowncycled (9%) of gestort (8%). Ten laatste wordt de min-erale fractie gedowncycled (42%) of gestort (58%).

De CEENE resultaten voor de mechanische scheidingsinstallatie bij Galloo gevenaan dat de Shredder de grootste impact heeft van de hoofdmodules, gevolgd door deFlotation, LTRB, nabehandelingen en Plastics Line. De Shredder behandelt echterveruit het meeste materiaal, en de Flotation heeft de hoogste impact per behan-delde massa. De impact wordt vooral veroorzaakt door elektriciteitsverbruik, watzorgt voor een hoge bijdrage voor fossiele brandstoffen en nucleaire energie. Voor deLTRB en vooral de Flotation is er echter ook een grote bijdrage qua impact door den-siteitsmedium, wat zorgt voor een hogere aboitische hernieuwbare grondstoffen- enland en biotische grondstoffenverbruik. De infrastructuur van de installatie heeft ookeen hoge impact, vooral samengesteld uit verbruik van fossiele brandstoffen en landen biotische grondstoffen, terwijl de waterzuiveringsinstallatie, het intern transporten de afvalverwerking minimaal bijdragen.

De installatie van Galloo Plastics heeft een vergelijkbare impact als het totaal vande mechanische scheidingsinstallatie, hoewel het veel minder materiaal behandelt,door de hoge energieëisen van het smelten van de plastics, wat zorgt voor een hoogverbruik van fossiele brandstoffen en nucleaire energie.

Voor de totale recyclageketen wordt de impact voor 96% veroorzaakt door behandel-ingshandelingen die uitgevoerd worden na Galloo. Deze impact wordt gedomineerddoor de secundaire staalproductie (bijna 97%), vooral samengesteld uit verbruik vanfossiele brandstoffen, samen met hoofdzakelijk fossiele brandstoffen en nucleaire en-ergie. De secundaire productie van aluminium, koper en cement zorgt voor bijnaal de overblijvende impact, die allen gedomineerd worden door verbruik van fossielebrandstoffen.

Hetzelfde patroon is duidelijk voor het scenario waar het elektronisch afval gestortwordt, waarbij het storten zelf geen significante impact heeft. De primaire staalpro-ductie is ook hier dominant (bijna 75%). De impact van de primaire productie vanplastics, bijna volledig door fossiele brandstoffen, en aluminium, met hoge bijdragenvoor fossiele brandstoffen, abiotische hernieuwbare grondstoffen en nucleaire energie,is ook hoger, vergeleken met de secundaire productie van deze materialen.

Als de twee scenario’s vergeleken worden, blijkt de recyclage meer duurzaam te zijnwat grondstoffenverbruik betreft (27% lagere CEENE impact). De vermeden impact

xxv

wordt vooral gehaald door een lager verbruik van fossiele brandstoffen.

De resultaten van de CO2-voetafdruk tonen hetzelfde patroon als de CEENE resul-taten voor de beide installaties van Galloo, doordat veel van deze CEENE impactsveroorzaakt worden door verbruik van fossiele brandstoffen. Hetzelfde geldt voor deverdere behandelingen na Galloo, hoewel de verbranding van plastics een veel hogerebijdrage heeft vergeleken met de bijdrage in de CEENE, doordat deze activiteit veelCO2 uitstoot. Ook de CO2-voetafdruk van het stortscenario toont hetzelfde patroonals de CEENE. De impact van het storten zelf echter ligt hoger, door de uitstoot vanbroeikasgassen, veroorzaakt door de vergisting van de organische stoffen aanwezig inelektronisch afval.

Over het algemeen is ook hier het recyclagescenario duurzamer dan het stortscenario(34% lagere Carbon Footprint), deze keer op het gebied van klimaatverandering.

Chapter 1

Introduction

There two main reason for the recycling of electronics. First of all, it is a haz-ardous waste stream, containing toxic heavy metals and plastics embodying flameretardants. The release of these substances should be prevented through proper man-agement of the waste stream. On the other hand, electronics contain a vast amountof elements, many of which are (very) valuable, such as iron, copper, aluminium,gold and palladium. From a resource saving perspective, it is thus important to keepthese materials available to the economy, through recycling.

The European Union adopted two main directives to deal with these two aspects.The first one (the RoHS Directive) restricts the use of certain hazardous compoundsin electronics, while the second one (the WEEE Directive) obligates the memberstates to provide for sound collection and recovery of materials contained in thiswaste stream.

The collection in Belgium is organized by Recupel, who send the sorted waste streamsto different recycling companies for treatment. One of these companies is GallooRecycling in Menen, and the work in this thesis was performed in cooperation withthis company.

In this study, the mechanical separation of one of the sub-streams of e-waste atGalloo is analyzed, as well as the subsequent treatment steps performed further onin the recycling chain. This recycling chain is then compared to a scenario wherethe electronic waste is landfilled, and all materials and services (e.g. electricity) areproduced through primary production from virgin resources.

This analysis is done to assess the performance of both the recycling system andlandfill scenario regarding environmental sustainability, in terms of the consumptionof natural resources, as well as in terms of the emissions of greenhouse gases.

1

Chapter 2

Literature Study

2.1 Sustainability

Sustainability is a word that one can hear more and more often. Nowadays, sustain-able development plays a central role in the mission of various international organi-zations, national institutions, corporations and more (Kates et al., 2005). There aremany definitions for sustainability, which are not all in line with each other. Oneof the earliest and most recognized definitions is the one given by the World Com-mission on Environment and Development (1987), also known as the BrundtlandCommission, in their report ‘Our Common Future’:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the ability of future generations to meettheir own needs.”

This definition includes two crucial concepts: the concept of needs, especially of thepoor, to which uppermost priority should be given; and the concept of limitationson the environment’s ability to meet these needs, set by the state of technologyand the social organization on environmental resources, and by the ability of natureto absorb the effects of human activities (World Commission on Environment andDevelopment, 1987). The report introduced a new way of thinking: we do not inheritthe environmental capital from our ancestors, but we are borrowing it from the futuregenerations (Reheul and De Smet, 2007).

The first crucial concept already shows that sustainable development should not belimited to environmental aspects only. Indeed, there are three pillars of sustainabilityneeding to be considered: the economic pillar, the environmental pillar and thesocial pillar. Furthermore, these three need to be treated with equal importance(Reheul and De Smet, 2007). Unsustainable economic development can erode theenvironmental resources upon which they are based, which can undermine furtherdevelopment. This can cause poverty, which in turn can be a cause for environmentalproblems, as poor people could mine the natural capital to meet short term needs,

3

4 Chapter 2: Literature Study

and as poverty can be linked with population growth (Birdsall and Griffin, 1988;Duraiappah, 1998; World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).This shows that it is impossible to attempt to deal with environmental problemswithout a broader perspective.

One aspect of sustainable development is the rational use of resources. Historically,economic growth, meaning an improvement for the economic pillar, was always cou-pled to an increase in material use, as can be seen in Figure 2.1. This increase indemand for natural resources has resulted in a serious threat to the environment,with problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, and ecosys-tem degradation, which also endangers the well-functioning of economies and soci-eties (Behrens et al., 2007). Moreover, as the earth itself is finite in size, the naturalresources it contains are finite as well, which indicates that the trend of increasingresource extraction cannot be sustained forever (Skinner, 1979).

Figure 2.1: Global material extraction versus world Gross Domestic Product (GDP)(Krausmann et al., 2009; UNEP, 2011).

Therefore a decoupling of economic growth and resource use is necessary, certainlywith regard to resources that are not renewable. Renewable resources are defined asresources that are regenerated on a human time scale, while non-renewable resourcescan be considered as a stock with a regeneration rate of zero over a relatively longperiod (Dewulf, 2012). The reduction in resource use itself can be considered on anabsolute or relative basis. When the total material input to an economy is reduced,the dematerialization is absolute, while a decrease in the intensity of use, so theratio between material input and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), results in relative

2.1. Sustainability 5

dematerialization (Behrens et al., 2007).

Analysis of the material basis of the global economy by Behrens et al. (2007) andKrausmann et al. (2009) observed two diverging trends (see Figure 2.2). First ofall, they noted evidence for the decoupling of economic growth from global materialextraction in relative terms. The production of economic output is consequentlybecoming less material intensive, which is a result of an increase in the efficiency withwhich resources are used. This can be accomplished among others through measuresby companies, usually driven by profit, which are grouped under the term Designfor Sustainability. These can include supply chain management, benchmarking andadopting international standards. The measures make sure that enhanced efficiencies,product quality and market opportunities correspond to improving environmentalperformance, social impacts and profit margins (Behrens et al., 2007; Dewulf, 2012).Here, the three pillars of sustainability can again be recognized.

Secondly however, overall levels of resource extraction are rising in absolute terms.This is caused by a global population growth and increasing welfare, especially indeveloping countries, which have the highest material intensity because of their gen-eral lower state of technology. This is a sign of a scale effect, which signifies theover-compensation of potentially positive developments for the environment by theexpansion of economic activities around the world (Behrens et al., 2007; Krausmannet al., 2009).

Figure 2.2: Trends in global resource extraction, GDP and material intensity, 1980-2008(SERI, 2014).


As natural resource extraction rises, waste production will rise accordingly, as canbe concluded from making a mass balance. All mass entering the economic systemas virgin materials must equal the sum of net accumulation within the system andwaste generated (Behrens et al., 2007; Bruvoll, 1998). This waste stream needs tobe dealt with, as is discussed in the next section.

2.1.1 Waste Management

Waste is, according to the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) of the EuropeanParliament and Council (2008), “any substance or object which the holder discardsor intends or is required to discard”. Once the product has become waste, this streamneeds to be managed, in order to protect the environment and human health as well asto improve the efficiency of resource use. To accomplish this, the waste hierarchy wasestablished. Priority should be given to, in descending order: prevention; preparingfor re-use; recycling; other recovery; and disposal (European Parliament and Council,2008).

The first two options result in the product not becoming waste at all. First of all,prevention means taking pro-active measures to reduce the waste quantities gener-ated and the adverse impacts of this waste. Second, preparation for re-use includesthe checking, cleaning or repairing of the product, so it can be used again for thesame purpose as originally conceived. If the product has nevertheless become waste,recycling ensures that the materials from which the wasted product is composed arerecovered to produce new products. If this is not possible, some other recovery op-erations can be used, which means that the wasted material is applied for anotheruseful purpose, such as incineration with energy recovery. The final and least desir-able option is disposal, for example deposition in a landfill or incineration withoutenergy recuperation (European Parliament and Council, 2008).

The first priority option of the waste hierarchy, waste prevention, is generally ac-cepted. However, the order of the further options is open for debate, especiallyregarding recycling and incineration. This is mainly because some wastes can be re-garded as a renewable fuel, and the incineration thereof could be applied to reduce theuse of fossil fuels, which decreases emissions of greenhouse gasses (Finnveden et al.,2005). Furthermore, the environmental benefit of recycling can depend strongly onthe recycling scenario used. If an inappropriate recycling method is used, burdensmay outweigh the benefits of recycling, even in comparison with landfilling, as wasshown for alkaline batteries by Olivetti et al. (2011). To resolve this, the hierarchyshould be supported by specific assessments, based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA,see further in Section 2.1.2.2), as well as economical validation using cost-benefit orcost-effectiveness methods (Schmidt et al., 2007).

LCAs carried out for paper waste (Finnveden et al., 2005; Schmidt et al., 2007) and


plastics waste (Finnveden et al., 2005; Lazarevic et al., 2010) suggest that for thesewaste streams recycling is generally preferred over incineration and landfilling. Theseauthors point out however that specific circumstances can alter these findings, so acase by case assessment may be needed. Schmidt et al. (2007) also mention that forwaste streams such as glass or biomass, the waste hierarchy does not seem to apply.

The waste hierarchy can therefore be used as a general guiding principle, but notas an absolute certainty. The option which delivers the best overall environmentaloutcome should be encouraged, which may require departing from the hierarchywhere this is justified by life-cycle thinking. This is mentioned directly in the WFDitself (European Parliament and Council, 2008).

2.1.2 Environmental Performance Measurement Methods

In order to improve the environmental performance of products and policies, infor-mation on environmental aspects of different systems is needed. Many tools havebeen developed, examples of which include Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) (Finnveden et al., 2009).

2.1.2.1 Material Flow Analysis

MFA studies the flux of different materials through a certain system which is de-fined in space and time, through quantification of inputs and outputs. It can besuitable for early recognition of potential environmental flows. This kind of tool isespecially useful for more encompassing and preventive policies, as it traces materialsthrough the process. In particular, Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) determines themain entrance routes to the environment for emissions and the associated processes,the stocks, flows and transformations within the system and the resulting concentra-tions in the environment. This is done separately for each substance (Belevi, 2002;Bringezu and Moriguchi, 2002; Udo de Haes et al., 1997).

2.1.2.2 Life Cycle Assessment

LCA assesses the potential environmental impacts and resources used throughoutthe whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials through production, use,end-of-life treatment, recycling, and final disposal. It is a comprehensive assessmentand takes into account many aspects of natural environment, human health, and re-source use. This can assist in improving the environmental performance of products(which include both goods and services) at various stages in their life cycle, informingdecision-makers when comparing different decision options, and marketing, e.g. en-vironmental claims or eco-labels (Finnveden et al., 2009; International Organizationfor Standardization, 2006a).

To standardize the methodology used to compose an LCA, different guidelines are


available. A first code of practice was developed by the Society of Environmen-tal Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). Later, the International Organization forStandardization (ISO) produced their standards, the ISO 14040 series. The EU tookthese ISO standards as a starting point for its International Reference Life Cycle DataSystem (ILCD Handbook) and Product and Organization Environmental Footprintmethods (European Commission, 2012). In this section, the description will focuson the ISO standards.

There are four stages in an LCA study (see Figure 2.3): the goal and scope defi-nition, the inventory analysis (data collection), the impact assessment (translationto potential environmental impacts), and the interpretation of the results. The out-comes of the process are presented relative to a certain functional unit, which defineswhat is being studied, and to which product or service all inputs and outputs arerelated (International Organization for Standardization, 2006a). The system bound-aries, defined in the first stage, determine which processes are included in the study,varying from the full life cycle of a product (cradle-to-grave) to only one facility orplant (gate-to-gate) (Ledón et al., 2012).

Figure 2.3: The four stages of an LCA study (International Organization for Standardiza-tion, 2006a).

Although LCA is a powerful tool which offers a rational and comprehensive approachfor the environmental assessment of product systems, it is clearly not flawless. Sub-jective choices of functional unit and system boundary selection can greatly influencethe results, as well as the allocation of the environmental burdens of a multifunctional


process (Reap et al., 2008a). This is of particular importance for waste managementsystems, as these are inherently multi-output processes (e.g. recycling of differentmaterials from a product) (Heijungs and Guinée, 2007). The quality of the studyalso depends heavily on the quality and availability of the data to be collected, whilethe selection of the environmental impact categories cuts off the types of damagesa study will consider (Björklund, 2002; Reap et al., 2008b). The obtained resultshave a low spatial and temporal resolution, and only environmental, so no socialor economic aspects, are included (Reap et al., 2008b; Udo de Haes et al., 2004),although these aspects can be integrated into a Social LCA and Life Cycle CostAnalysis respectively. These methods are still in an earlier phase of developmentcompared to environmental LCA though, and of course require a lot of additionaltime and data collection (Hunkeler and Rebitzer, 2005). Finally, summarizing thedifferent impact data into a single figure for interpretation can prove to be difficult,as it requires some kind of subjective weighting or valuation (Reap et al., 2008b).

2.1.2.3 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment

Exergy is a thermodynamic unit, which can be defined as “the maximum amountof work which can be produced by a system or a flow of matter or energy as itcomes to equilibrium with a reference environment” (Rosen and Dincer, 2001). Itis not subjected to a law of conservation, like energy, but rather can be consumeddue to irreversibilities in real processes, where it is converted to entropy. In thisway, it can be seen as a measure of quality of an energy form (Rosen and Dincer,2001; Szargut, 1989; Wall, 1977). Resources, products and waste materials all havean exergy content, which can be calculated (expressed in Joule (J)). This can beused as a measure for economic losses and dematerialization, as well as for wasteaccounting, and thus to quantify the environmental impact of technology (Dewulfet al., 2008).

In an Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA), all inputs from the natural envi-ronment of the whole life cycle are converted to exergy values. One method tocalculate the resource consumption of a system or process is the Cumulative ExergyExtraction from the Natural Environment (CEENE), in which the fingerprint of usedresources is quantified in eight categories: abiotic renewable resources, fossil fuels,nuclear energy, metal ores, minerals and mineral aggregates, water resources, landand biotic resources, and atmospheric resources. This method has no need of (sub-jective) weighting factors, as everything is expressed in a single unit, and accountsfor the total exergy the natural system is deprived of (Dewulf et al., 2007; Ledónet al., 2012).


2.2 Electronic Waste: Non-technical

Electronic waste, or e-waste in short, is a term that is generally used for various formsof electric and electronic equipment, which does not have any value anymore for itsowners and has been discarded of. Various organizations have various definitionsfor the term though (Widmer et al., 2005). Nowadays, most authors and organiza-tions use the term determined by the EU, which defined Electrical and ElectronicEquipment (EEE), as “equipment which is dependent on electric currents or electro-magnetic fields in order to work properly and equipment for the generation, transferand measurement of such currents and fields and designed for use with a voltagerating not exceeding 1 000V for alternating current and 1 500V for direct current”.If such equipment is discarded, it becomes Waste Electrical and Electronic Equip-ment (WEEE) (European Parliament and Council, 2012). In this work, e-waste andWEEE will be regarded as synonyms.

WEEE is usually seen as a dangerous waste stream which can cause severe envi-ronmental and human health damage if it is not treated in an appropriate way. Itcan contain various amounts of hazardous substances like heavy metals (e.g. Hg,Cd, Pb), flame retardants (e.g. polybrominated diphenyl ethers) and others (Tsy-denova and Bengtsson, 2011). However, the enormous resource potential is usuallyoverlooked. Electronics nowadays can contain up to 60 different elements, many ofwhich are valuable precious and special metals, like gold or palladium (Hagelükenand Meskers, 2008; Schlüp et al., 2009). When comparing metal ores to PrintedCircuit Boards (PCBs), it can even be seen that the latter contain more than 10times the concentration of precious metals (Betts, 2008; Li et al., 2007). It is thusimportant to prevent the loss of these resources when the appliance is discarded,through recycling.

This was recognized by the European Union (EU), as they tried to review a numberof raw materials to assess their criticality. Raw materials, and especially rare metals,are essential for the economy, but their availability is coming increasingly underpressure. Critical raw materials have a high economic importance combined with ahigh supply risk (e.g. political-economic instability of the producing countries). Thevast majority of these critical raw materials are metals (see Figure 2.4), many ofwhich are used in electronics. Resource efficiency and recycling play a major role inmitigating this criticality, bearing in mind that it is also important, in the context ofthe EU, to recycle these materials within the EU, to keep them within the Europeanmarket (European Commission, 2014).

2.2.1 Metals and Plastics Management

Although the composition of electronic waste can vary significantly (see further inSection 2.3.1), the two biggest material fractions in electronic waste are generally

2.2. Electronic Waste: Non-technical 11

Figure 2.4: Results of the criticality assessment. The critical raw materials are shown inthe red shaded area of the graph (European Commission, 2014).

metals and plastics (Widmer et al., 2005). These two fractions are therefore themost important streams to consider, when talking about the waste management ofWEEE, and will be discussed in more detail in the following sections.

2.2.1.1 Metals

Metals have always been of huge importance to humanity. They perform a variety offunctions, especially in construction (e.g. steel and aluminium) and electronics (e.g.copper and precious metals like gold and palladium). In the evolution of the use ofmetals, three main aspects can be seen: firstly, a shift in the technical and economicrelevance within the metals group; secondly, an increase in the variety of uses formetals and of the amount of different metals in use; and thirdly, the continuousincrease of the manufacturing and use of metals as a whole. All signs indicate apersistent growth in demand for metals both quantitatively and qualitatively, whichresults in greater volumes demanded, as well as a wider range of metals and metalalloys (von Gleich, 2006). The extraction of metals also grows faster than othermaterial categories, which indicates their continued and increasing importance forindustrial development (Behrens et al., 2007).

This demand obviously needs to be met by the supply. As opposed to fossil fuels,which are consumed when used, metals have a theoretical potential for endless recy-cling and reuse (Gordon et al., 2006). A sustainable metals industry makes use ofthis, and is therefore based on a closed loop of metals in the industrial system. Here,quantity and quality losses are avoided as far as possible, and separate cycles for the


various metals and alloys are established which should minimize their contamination(von Gleich, 2006).

2.2.1.2 Plastics

Plastics have been the most used man-made material in the world since the year 1900,providing among others improved packaging, new textiles and building materials(Andrady and Neal, 2009; Ryntz, 2006; Thompson et al., 2009). The big successof plastics can be explained by the wide range of unique properties they possess:they can be used at a very broad temperature range, are resistant to chemicals andlight, and are very strong and tough, although they can be worked easily as a hotmelt (Andrady and Neal, 2009). These properties, together with the low costs ofmanufacturing, have resulted in a global plastics production of 288 million tonnesin 2012 (PlasticsEurope, 2013), with a somewhat conservative annual growth rate of5% (Andrady and Neal, 2009).

Plastics are rarely used in a pure form, but are typically mixed with other materials,called additives. These can enhance the performance of different aspects, such asstructural strength, thermal stability, flexibility and fire retardation (Andrady andNeal, 2009). These additives are often the subject of health concerns though. Whenburning mixed plastic waste for example, Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and halogenatedadditives lead to a risk of dioxins, other polychlorinated biphenyls and furans beingreleased into the environment (Hopewell et al., 2009).

The production and use of plastics result in a number of environmental burdens. Firstof all, 90% of the plastics nowadays are completely derived from non-renewable fossilresources (Al-Salem et al., 2009), which results in the fact that around 4% of theannual petroleum production is converted into plastics, with an additional 3− 4%

used for energy consumption during their production. On the other end of the lifecycle, waste plastics form a significant waste stream. Packaging is the main sourcefor this, but WEEE and end-of-life vehicles are becoming important sources as well.Because plastics are, as mentioned earlier, very though and resistant, they are ex-tremely durable when released in the environment. In the case of (bio)degradableplastics, the degradation rates depend on the suitable environmental factors. Re-cycling is thus a method to improve both the environmental impact and resourcedepletion of the production of plastics (Hopewell et al., 2009).

Treatment and recycling processes of plastics can be broadly divided into four majorcategories: primary (mechanical reprocessing into a product with equivalent proper-ties), secondary (mechanical reprocessing into a product with lower properties), ter-tiary (chemical constituent recovery) and quaternary (energy recovery). The trendfrom primary to quaternary recycling is that it requires a less pure feed and lesstreatment efforts, but also results in less material recycling (Al-Salem et al., 2009;


Hopewell et al., 2009). These different treatment options are in line with the wastehierarchy (see Section 2.1.1).

2.2.2 Market Analysis

There seems to exist a broad consensus among authors that electronic waste is one ofthe fastest growing waste streams, in amounts as well as in importance (Bigum et al.,2012; Hagelüken and Meskers, 2008; Robinson, 2009; Tanskanen, 2013; Townsend,2011; Widmer et al., 2005;...). Because of lack of data, especially in developingcountries, it is difficult to state the exact amount of e-waste arising, also because ofthe fact that illegally exported WEEE is not taken into account. Furthermore, notall countries or organizations include the same types of equipment in their analysis,which complicates the situation (Ongondo et al., 2011; Townsend, 2011).

To resolve this, estimations can be made, for example using production or sales statis-tics and the estimated product lifespan (Townsend, 2011). The resulting global num-bers range from 20− 25million tonnes per year in 2009 (Robinson, 2009), 40milliontonnes per year in 2007 (Sepúlveda et al., 2010), 49million tonnes per year in 2012(StEP, 2014) and 20− 50million tonnes per year in 2006 (Cobbing, 2008). For theEU, this is 8.3− 9.1million tonnes in 2005 (Huisman et al., 2008), 8.9million tonnesin 2010 (Zoeteman et al., 2010) and 9.9million tonnes in 2012 (StEP, 2014). InBelgium, the amount of WEEE generated in 2011 was 245 000 tonnes (Huisman andBaldé, 2013).

The generation of e-waste will generally change as economies grow and new tech-nologies are developed. A correlation can for example be observed between thenumber of electrical appliances in a country and that country’s GDP. This is be-cause electronic equipment is essential for the functioning of most current economies(Robinson, 2009). Increasing development of technology also leads to shorter inno-vation cycles and thus to a higher turnover of devices, which consequently increasesthe production of e-waste. For instance, the average lifespan of the processor in acomputer has decreased from 4 – 6 to 2 years in the period from 1997 to 2005, andis further decreasing (Culver, 2005; Kiddee et al., 2013; Widmer et al., 2005). InWestern Europe, the amount of e-waste is expected to grow 3− 5% annually (Cuiand Forssberg, 2003; Dalrymple et al., 2007). In developing countries, this wastestream is even predicted to increase between 200% and 400% from 2010 to 2020(Schlüp et al., 2009).

2.2.3 Legislation

To deal with the increasing amounts of e-waste, the need has grown to find modelsfor the management of this waste stream. This is being discussed by many differentstakeholders throughout the world, like international organizations, governments, in-


dustry, non-governmental organizations and the academic world (Tanskanen, 2013).The results are various rules, regulations, policies and guidance documents, that haveimplications on a global, supra-national (e.g. the EU) or national level. An exampleof a global treaty is the Basel Convention, which aims to keep hazardous waste withinthe country it was produced. Another international initiative is Solving the E-wasteProblem (or StEP), instituted by the United Nations together with academic andgovernmental organizations, which tries to exchange and develop knowledge to pro-mote the reuse of recycled materials and control e-waste contaminants (Sthiannopkaoand Wong, 2013; Widmer et al., 2005).

The EU has adopted two major directives through which it has taken a progressivestand on WEEE. The WEEE Directive implements Extended Producer Responsibil-ity (EPR) to promote the collection and recycling of WEEE, while the Restrictionof Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive limits the allowed content of certain haz-ardous chemicals - lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominatedbiphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers - in newly produced EEE (EuropeanParliament and Council, 2011; Townsend, 2011). The European Union has, withthe implementation of these two directives, recognized the significance of e-wasteregarding both the content of hazardous substances as well as its high potential forrecyclable materials (see the introduction of Section 2.2) (Bigum et al., 2012). Asthis work deals with the management of electronic waste, the WEEE Directive willnow be discussed in more detail.

2.2.3.1 WEEE Directive

After the EU defined e-waste as a priority waste stream in 1991 (Widmer et al.,2005), it adopted the first version of the WEEE Directive (2002/96/EC) in 2003(European Parliament and Council, 2003). It was recast in 2012, to include the addedamendments and to make some substantial changes (2012/19/EU). The objective ofthe directive is to contribute to sustainable production and consumption, throughpolicy which is in line with the waste hierarchy (see Section 2.1.1). Secondly, it seeksto improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycleof EEE, in particular the ones involved in the collection and treatment of WEEE.In this way, it contributes to protecting the environment and human health, as wellas to improving the efficiency of resource use (European Parliament and Council,2012).

The first WEEE Directive of 2003 was applied to certain EEE falling under tencategories (European Parliament and Council, 2003):

1. Large household appliances2. Small household appliances3. IT and telecommunications equipment


4. Consumer equipment5. Lighting equipment6. Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary

industrial tools)7. Toys, leisure and sports equipment8. Medical devices (with the exception of all implanted and infected products)9. Monitoring and control instruments10. Automatic dispensers

This was changed in the new directive to all EEE put on the market, grouped in sixcategories (European Parliament and Council, 2012):

1. Temperature exchange equipment2. Screens, monitors3. Lamps4. Consumer equipment5. Large equipment (any external dimension larger than 50 cm)6. Small equipment (no external dimension larger than 50 cm)7. Small IT and telecommunication equipment

The European Parliament and Council uses EPR to encourage companies to designtheir products in such a way, that the repair, possible upgrading, re-use, disman-tling and recovery of WEEE, its components and materials is facilitated. EPR is anenvironmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product isextended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle (OECD, 2001), whichis in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle (European Parliament and Council, 2012;Widmer et al., 2005). The consequence is that users of EEE from private householdsshould now have the possibility to return their WEEE at least free of charge. Eachproducer is thus responsible for financing the waste management of its own products.They can choose to fulfill this obligation individually, or join a scheme that handlesthis responsibility collectively. A precondition for the effective treatment and recy-cling of WEEE is the separate collection, where the consumers have to contributeactively by not disposing of WEEE as unsorted municipal waste, but discarding itat an appropriate collection facility (European Parliament and Council, 2012).

Member states have to comply to the collection targets fixed by the directive. Thiswas set by in 2003 on at least four kilograms of WEEE per inhabitant per year(European Parliament and Council, 2003), and was tightened by the recast directiveto at least 45% of the average weight of EEE placed on the market in the threepreceding years. From 2019 this would go up to at least 65%, or alternatively to85% of the WEEE generated (see Figure 2.5). The Member States then also have toachieve targets for the amount of WEEE that, after collection, is sent to treatment.These targets are defined per category of EEE (European Parliament and Council,


2012).

Figure 2.5: Overview of the WEEE collection targets, as set by the new WEEE Directive(Huisman and Baldé, 2013).

2.2.4 The Situation in Belgium

After the establishment of the WEEE Directive in 2003, it had to be implementedinto national law. In Belgium, this is done separately in every region, Flanders,Brussels and Wallonia. The targets for collection of WEEE set by the FlemishGovernment are stricter that those of the EU, namely 8.5 kg per inhabitant peryear (Vlaamse Regering, 2012). To fulfill the producer responsibility, Recupel wasfounded to represent Belgian manufacturers and importers of devices affiliated withRecupel. It organises the collection and environmentally responsible recycling ofWEEE. To accomplish this, it currently uses 4 collection channels: container parksin municipalities where householders can dispose their WEEE; retailers that sell newequipment; reuse centres that reuse some of the used EEE as second-hand equipment;and private operators that have a charter agreement with Recupel. The organizationlargely fulfills the legal EU target of 4 kg per inhabitant per year, with a collectionrate of 10.1 kg per inhabitant per year in 2011, but efforts still have to be made toreach the more ambitious targets of the new WEEE Directive (Huisman and Baldé,2013).

2.3 Electronic Waste: Technical

2.3.1 Characterization

WEEE is a very non-homogenous and complex waste stream. Nearly every elementin the periodic table can be encountered, some of which are potentially hazardous(like Pb, Hg, Cd or Be), while others have a very high recovery value (like Au,Ag, Pt and Pd) (Townsend, 2011). Consequently, it proves to be difficult to give

2.3. Electronic Waste: Technical 17

a generalized material composition for the entire waste stream. Usually, the wastestream is roughly divided into five categories: ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals,glass, plastics and other, with possible further subdivisions. The European TopicCentre on Resource and Waste Management found that almost half of the totalweight of WEEE was taken up by iron and steel, approximately 21% by plastics andapproximately 13% by non-ferrous metals, with copper accounting for 7% (see Figure2.6). A similar composition was found by the SWICO/S.EN.S recycling system inSwitzerland (Widmer et al., 2005).

Figure 2.6: WEEE material composition (Widmer et al., 2005).

The composition of electronic waste also changes over time. The metal content hasremained the dominant fraction, but pollutants and hazardous components have seena steady decline (Widmer et al., 2005). These changes can be driven by legislationsuch as the RoHS Directive (see Section 2.2.3) (Dalrymple et al., 2007). Cui andZhang (2008) mention a gradual decrease of non-ferrous metals and precious metalscontents over the years, because of the falling power consumption and rising clockfrequency (surface conduction). For example, the thickness of the contact layer,made out of gold wafer, has decreased from around 1− 2.5µm in the eighties tobetween 300 and 600 nm in today’s modern appliances.

2.3.2 Take-back and Recycling

Appropriate collection is of the highest importance as the first step of the e-wastemanagement chain. This chain can only be successful if a substantial part of thewaste stream is taken back and sent to treatment (Stevels et al., 2013). However,the collection phase is a bottleneck in current WEEE recycling (Bernstad et al.,2011), especially for small WEEE, as these are easily disposed in normal household


waste (Darby and Obara, 2005) or kept in storage by consumers who expect theseappliances to still have some value (Kang and Schoenung, 2005). Most importantlythough, large illegal export streams to regions without appropriate legislation preventproper collection and treatment (Hagelüken and Meskers, 2008).

Indeed, the way electronic waste is recycled depends a lot on where this is executed.In the developed world more comprehensive methods were developed for the treat-ment of this waste stream by the formal recycling industry. Both valuable materialsand hazardous compounds are separated and treated appropriately. In the develop-ing world on the other hand, an informal recycling industry has emerged, throughwhich many poor people earn their only income by recovering the valuable materials.Unfortunately, this operation is much less efficient than the processes used by theformal industry in developed countries in terms of recovery efficiency, and pays littleor no regard to environment or human health (Swedish Environmental ProtectionAgency, 2011). In this section, the focus will lie on the formal recycling industry.

The subsequent steps after collection are generally performed in two types of facilities.In the first one, the e-waste is dismantled and processed mechanically to separate andfurther recover the materials. In the second type metallurgical processes are usedto recover metals, while other processes are utilized to recover plastics and othermaterials (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2011).

2.3.2.1 Dismantling and Mechanical Processing

As a first step, the waste stream is usually dismantled manually. This allows for theremoval of certain components or parts, which is indispensable for the reuse of com-ponents that still work, the removal of hazardous elements and the recovery of highlyvaluable and high-grade materials (e.g. PCBs or cables). Automatic disassembly isstill in its infancy, as the product needs an appropriate design for this to be feasible,which has not found wide application yet (Cui and Forssberg, 2003; Teller, 2006).

To allow for maximum liberation of the different materials, the waste stream is thenfirst shredded in most cases, to small particles which are generally below 5− 10mm

in size (Cui and Forssberg, 2003; He et al., 2006). The further mechanical processingrelies on differences in physical properties of the various materials, like size, mag-netism, electrical conductivity and density. Some of these mechanical processes arediscussed next.

Screening is used to prepare a uniformly sized feed, which is necessary for certainmechanical processes, as well as to upgrade metal contents. This is achieved byusing a rotating or vibrating screen. Magnetic separation is subsequently used for therecovery of ferromagnetic metals, making use of magnetic tape or drums. Advances indesign and operation of high-intensity magnetic separators have even made it possible

2.3. Electronic Waste: Technical 19

to separate copper alloys from the waste stream. Eddy Current separation is basedon differences in electrical conductivity. When a piece of non-ferrous metal (like Alor Cu) passes over a magnet rotating at high speed, this forms eddy currents, whichin turn creates a magnetic field around the piece of metal with the same polarity,causing the piece to be repelled. This allows the recovery of non-ferrous metals fromthe waste stream (Cui and Forssberg, 2003; He et al., 2006; Kang and Schoenung,2005; Teller, 2006).

Several methods are used to separate heavier materials from lighter ones, like metalsand non-metals. The basis of separation is the difference in density of the compo-nents, which causes a different relative movement in response to the force of gravityand the resistance to motion in a fluid, such as water or air. The size and shape ofa particle also play a role in this, so close size control of the feed is required. Anexample are float-sink methods, which allow for the separation of plastics from thewaste stream. In practice some or all of these methods are combined, according tothe requirements of the task. A scheme of a typical example of such a combinationcan be seen in Figure 2.7 (Cui and Forssberg, 2003; He et al., 2006; Teller, 2006).

Figure 2.7: Scheme of the first steps in a typical e-waste recycling process (Swedish Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, 2011).


2.3.2.2 Metallurgical Recovery of Metals

The most valuable metals found in WEEE are the precious metals (e.g. Au, Pt, Pd,Ag) found in PCBs, and the copper found in the PCBs and cables (Townsend, 2011).These cannot be recovered efficiently using mechanical recycling methods. Metallur-gical techniques are hence used to recuperate these metals. Three major groups ofmethods can be distinguished: pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and biometallurgy(Cui and Zhang, 2008).

In pyrometallurgical processes, the scraps are burned, melted or otherwise processedunder high temperatures, which removes the plastics. Metals like iron and leadare converted into oxides, which become fixed in a silica base slag. The melt onthe other hand contains copper, as well as precious metals like gold, sliver andpalladium. This is further refined in a converter and an anode furnace, where it iscast into anodes with a copper content exceeding 99%, with the remaining consistingof the other recoverable (precious) metals. Then, the metals are typically refined andrecovered through electrolysis in an acidic solution (Cui and Zhang, 2008; SwedishEnvironmental Protection Agency, 2011).

Hydrometallurgical methods are more exact, more predictable, more easily controlledand less energy intensive than pyrometallurgical processes. Here, the processed e-waste is exposed to a series of acid or caustic solutions (leaches), in which the metalsare dissolved. The subsequent leachate is then subjected to separation and purifi-cation procedures like precipitation of impurities, solvent extraction, adsorption orion-exchange to isolate and concentrate the targeted metals. Thereafter, the solutionsare treated through electrorefining processes, chemical reduction or crystallization torecover the metals. The most commonly used leaching agents are cyanide, halide,thiourea and thiosulfate (Cui and Zhang, 2008; Swedish Environmental ProtectionAgency, 2011; Townsend, 2011).

Biometallurgy is one of the most promising technologies of the last decade. Themethod uses microorganisms to aid in the metals extraction. Research and devel-opment is ongoing for a number of metals like copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc, gold andsilver. The two main areas are bioleaching and biosorption. In acid bioleaching, ironand sulfur oxidizing bacteria are used, where the metals are leached because of thesulfuric acid produced by the latter. In biosorption, there is physical or chemicaladsorption of the metals through a very complex process onto the cell walls or cell-associated materials, or it can be related to the metabolism of the cell. Althoughthese processes are very promising, they are currently in a research stage only andare not yet applied in the e-waste recycling chain (Cui and Zhang, 2008; Schlüp et al.,2009; Townsend, 2011).

2.4. LCA Studies on Electronic Waste 21

2.3.2.3 Plastics Recycling

Next to metals, plastics have the greatest potential recycling value in e-waste. Therecycling remains a big challenge though, because bulk WEEE can include morethan ten different polymers, which can contain organic and inorganic hazardouscomponents, like heavy metals or flame retardants. Therefore, only a minor fraction(< 25%) of plastics is recycled. When isolated from other components of e-waste,the recovered plastics can be turned into new plastic products through processes likemelting, moulding and extrusion. Alternatives like pyrolysis and depolymerization,where the plastics are turned into coke, coke oven gas, as well as other chemicals, arebeing developed, but their application in large scale installations are uncertain. Onthe other hand, a significant fraction of the plastics in e-waste follows the metals tosmelters, where they are used as fuel and reducing agent, thus replacing cokes (Kangand Schoenung, 2005; Schlummer et al., 2007; Swedish Environmental ProtectionAgency, 2011).

2.4 LCA Studies on Electronic Waste

Many LCA studies concerning electronic waste in general and the treatment thereofwere already conducted. A selection of two studies is presented in this section.

2.4.1 The Swiss Take-back and Recycling System for WEEE

Hischier et al. (2005) performed an LCA, assessing the environmental impact of theSwiss take-back and recycling system for WEEE. Wäger et al. (2011) later carriedout a follow up on this study, using the same methodology, but with several fac-tors that had changed. The amount of WEEE taken back had increased with 45%,new treatment options had emerged (e.g. plastics were no longer exclusively inciner-ated, but some were also recycled), and the inventory database was updated, whichprovided more adequate datasets for the treatment of the various WEEE fractionsavailable.

A combination of an MFA and a simplified LCA was performed. The former per-mitted to identify the material flows related to the activities of the Swiss WEEEtake-back system, while the latter calculated the environmental impacts associatedwith the collection, pre-processing and end-processing of the material flows identifiedby the MFA. Three different scenarios were taken into account: the Swiss WEEErecovery, and two baseline scenarios: the incineration of the WEEE in a MunicipalSolid Waste Incineration (MSWI) plant, and the deposition in a landfill. For theimpact assessment, both midpoint (CML-method) and endpoint (Eco-Indicator ’99)approaches were investigated.

The calculations showed that the life cycle impacts for the Swiss system were signif-


icantly lower than the two baseline scenarios, with a higher impact for landfilling,although the difference with the other baseline scenario is very small. Within theSwiss system, the main contribution to the environmental impact comes from themetal treatment, followed by Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) and plastics treatment. Thecollection and pre-processing, which includes sorting, dismantling and mechanicalseparation, showed only marginal contributions to the total environmental impacts.The impacts for the baselines scenarios were mostly associated with the disposalprocess itself, rather than with the substitution of raw materials.

2.4.2 Metal Recovery from High-grade WEEE

Resource issues in LCAs involving WEEE usually focus on iron, aluminium copper,like in the study of Hischier et al. (2005) (see Section 2.4.1). Minor but precious met-als are often not included in detail. These metals may be critical though, as the en-vironmental burden of producing them from virgin resources can be very high. Thatis why Bigum et al. (2012) conducted a study, of which the aim was to establish a lifecycle inventory for the recycling and recovery of copper, gold, nickel, palladium, andsilver. Besides that, the environmental impact of the recovery of metals (Al, Cu, Au,Fe, Ni, Pd, and Ag) from high-grade WEEE was assessed trough an LCA, includingthe avoidance of the extraction of similar metals from virgin resources. High-gradeWEEE is the fraction with the highest amount of precious metals, consisting of ITand consumer equipment. Only the environmental impact of the recovery of metalsfrom WEEE was evaluated, not the overall environmental cost of treating high-gradeWEEE, so the removal and treatment of hazardous components was excluded.

The analysis showed that the overall recovery of metals from WEEE resulted insignificant environmental savings, as well as savings in resource consumption. Thismeans that the environmental costs of pre-treating the WEEE and recovering themetals are less than the cost related to the production of similar amounts of metalsfrom virgin ore. The costs related to the pre-treatment were insignificant in com-parison with the overall picture. Actual savings were expected to be even higher, asnot all environmental burdens from the mining and refining of virgin metals were in-cluded, due to the insufficient availability of reliable data. The recovery of preciousmetals seemed to play a more important role than the recovery of more commonmetals like iron and aluminium, although the latter are recovered in much higherquantities, and although the precious metals have a relatively low recovery rate.The majority of these losses take place in the pre-treatment phase, which suggestthat an improvement here would make the overall treatment and recovery of metalsfrom high-grade WEEE even more important from an environmental point of view.The results of this study support the idea that recycling targets, as set by the WEEEDirective, should be based on recovery of the individual metals, rather than on anoverall weight basis.

Chapter 3

Objectives

The objective in this thesis is to evaluate the electronic waste recycling chain inBelgium, starting from primary treatment to end-processing, where materials arerecovered. This is done with two environmental aspects in mind. First of all, the ef-ficiency of the material recovery is determined, using a material flow analysis (MFA),while secondly, the potential impacts on the environment are analyzed trough an (ex-ergetic) life cycle assessment ((E)LCA).

To achieve this, the process at Galloo Recycling, where the incoming e-waste isdismantled and mechanically separated, is inventoried to establish information onthe primary treatment step in the recycling chain. The end-treatment processes,further treating the products that leave Galloo, are modeled using the Ecoinventdatabase.

The potential environmental impact will be calculated in terms of natural resourceconsumption and emissions of greenhouse gases, using the cumulative exergy ex-traction from the natural environment (CEENE) for the former, and the CarbonFootprint for the latter. All impacts are to be expressed in proportion with a func-tional unit, describing the function of the system, which is the treatment of electronicwaste.

The impact of the recycling chain is then to be compared with the scenario whereall e-waste is landfilled. Here, all materials and services (e.g. electricity), which areproduced through the recycling of electronic waste, are supplied through the primaryproduction chain. This allows the quantification of the environmental gains or lossesachieved through the recycling of electronic waste.

23

Chapter 4

Materials and Methods

This work was conducted and presented in accordance with the ISO 14040 and 14044guidelines (International Organization for Standardization, 2006a,b), and with theinternal LCA guidelines of the EnVOC research group (Ledón et al., 2012).

4.1 Scope

4.1.1 The E-waste Recycling System in Belgium

As seen in Section 2.2.4, Recupel organizes the collection and treatment of WEEEarising in Belgium from manufacturers and importers who joined this scheme. Col-lected WEEE is first checked, and equipment that still can be used is repaired,refurbished or cleaned. The rest is divided into five fractions: KV (cooling and freez-ing appliances, 17% on a mass basis in 2012), GW (big white goods, 22%), TVM(television screens and monitors, 21%), LMP (gas discharge lamps, 1%), and OVE(other appliances, 39%). These fractions are sent to the recycling companies, wherethe materials are recycled (see Section 2.3.2.1) (Huisman and Baldé, 2013; Recu-pel, 2014). The market structure of electronics and waste electronics in Belgiumis presented in Figure 4.1, while the collection results of the different fractions aredisplayed in Figure A.1 in Appendix A.

One of the companies receiving e-waste streams from Recupel is Galloo Recycling inMenen, Belgium, which processes parts of the GW, TVM and OVE streams (Galloo,2014). In 2012, about 19 500 tonnes of OVE were treated here, which is almost halfof this fraction collected in Belgium (see Figure A.1).

4.1.2 System Boundaries

To meet the defined objectives in Chapter 3, the system boundaries are drawn toinclude both the primary treatment and end-processing steps. The former is coveredin the foreground system while the latter is encompassed in the background system

25

26 Chapter 4: Materials and Methods

Scope

Production New Equipment

Import New Equipment

Import WEEE

Use by Consumers &

CompaniesStorage

Installers

Reuse Centres Container ParksCharter Partners

RetailersOther Scrap

Metal Companies

Waste Collectors

RefurbishersRecupel

RecyclersOther Recyclers

Sorting Installations

Export Reuse Illegal ExportExport for

Material/Energy Recovery

Material/Energy Recovery in

Belgium

Landfill or Incineration

Use

Discarding

Collection & Sorting

Dismantling & Mechanical

Separation

End-processing

Import & Production

Figure 4.1: Market structure of electronics and waste electronics in Belgium. The Scopearea indicates the focus of this work. Adapted from Huisman and Baldé (2013).

(see Figure 4.2). More specific, the foreground system includes all treatment pro-cesses of the OVE rest waste stream, which is a sub-stream of OVE after depollution(see further in Section 4.2.2), from the transport to the Shredder to where all of thefractions leave the company as a product, as well as the plastics recycling at sistercompany Galloo Plastics. This means that the collection and depollution steps arenot covered in this study.

The background system is defined as a part of recycling chain of OVE rest, whichincludes all further treatment processes outside Galloo, as well as the productionprocesses of all utilities used for the above defined foreground system.

4.1.3 Functional Unit

A functional unit is defined to represent the function of the studied system andto provide a reference to normalize the input and output data. It also allows thecomparison between different systems (Ledón et al., 2012). It was suggested thatwaste treatment systems should apply a functional unit of one tonne of waste treated

4.1. Scope 27

TechnosphereBackground

System

Galloo

Foreground System

OVE

Depollution

ICT/Wood+metals

Further treatment

Shredder

OVE rest

Hazardous materials

Valuable materials

LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line

Post Treatments

Iron/steel

Mix of metals

Non-ferrousmetals

Galloo Plastics

MARKET

PE/PS/PP/ABS

Fe/steel

‘bad’ plastics

Steel

Copper

Heat

Electricity

ENVIRONMENT

EmissionsNatural

resources

Background System

Material Production

Energy Production

‘good’ plastics

Aluminium

Cement

Zinc oxide

Au/Ag/Pd/Ni/Pb

Reducing agent

Road aggregate

Iron/Steel Recycling (LU/NL)

Aluminium Recycling (IT/BE)

Copper Recycling (BE/CN)

Precious Metals Recycling (BE)

Plastics Incineration (BE/SE)

Cable Recycling (CN)

Sand/stones

Al

Non-ferrous metals

Cables

Non-ferrousmetals

heavy plastics

WWTPWaste water

Natural resources

Emissions

Landfill (BE/CN)

Figure 4.2: Schematic overview of the Galloo process, with the system boundaries of theforeground system and background system. The truck drawings show theinternal transport steps that are taken into account. PM: precious metals:Au, Ag, Pd.

of a specified composition (Friðriksson et al., 2002). As using this functional unitmeant that some flows became very small, the functional unit chosen in this work is100 000 kg (100 tonnes) of OVE rest treated.


4.1.4 Allocation

As some processes produce multiple outputs, the environmental burdens of theseprocesses should be partitioned to the different products (Friðriksson et al., 2002).In this work, this allocation was done on a mass basis, so in proportion to the massfraction in the total output stream.

4.2 Life Cycle Inventory

4.2.1 Data Sources

The foreground system includes the studied processes for which data were collectedon all inflows (e-waste, energy, additives) and outflows (products, waste). Thisinformation was first of all obtained during multiple company visits with guided toursof the facilities, meetings and e-mail communication (Debaere, 2013; Vanheule, 2013;Waignein, 2013, 2014). Quantitative data were collected during a batch treatment ofOVE rest, performed in October of 2013. Here, the masses of the different streams,both entering and leaving the system, were measured, as well as the amount ofutilities needed, such as electricity, additives and internal transport.

The compositions of the streams were not measured, but taken from expert judgment(Vanheule, 2013; Waignein, 2013, 2014; see further in Section 4.2.4), and the RepToolof 2012. The latter is a reporting tool developed by the WEEE Forum, which is theassociation of the producer responsibility organizations for WEEE in Europe, andis used by recycling companies to report their treatment results to the authorities(WEEE Forum, 2014; WF-RepTool, 2014).

The information on the background recycling processes is based on documentationon the websites of the respective recycling companies and/or on literature regardingtypical recycling technologies, as no data or information about the used processeswere or could be collected. For the quantitative description of these processes, theEcoinvent v.2.2 database (Ecoinvent Centre, 2010) was used, with modification onelectricity, transportation and metal recovery efficiency where necessary (see further).

4.2.2 Process Description of the Galloo Recycling Plant

When the OVE waste stream arrives at Galloo, it is first taken to the Depollution.Here, hazardous elements are taken out and sent to special treatment. Streams thatcan be recycled easily, such as paper, cotton and wood are separated as well. Fur-thermore, parts that have a high value because of a large concentration in preciousmetals (PM), like PCBs, hard-disks or cables, are separated and sold for specializedtreatment. Finally, Personal Computers (PCs), laptops and flat screens are disman-tled manually, after which the parts are sent to further treatment. The waste streamthat remains is then split into three sub-streams: ICT equipment (about 12%, e.g.

4.2. Life Cycle Inventory 29

printers, scanners,...), wood and metals (about 4%, e.g. loudspeakers), and OVErest (about 84%, e.g. coffee machines, vacuum cleaners,...). These three streamsreceive the same further treatment, but this is done separately.

As mentioned in Section 4.1.2, the focus of this work lies on the OVE rest stream.The treatment is performed in four main modules: the Shredder (Zerdirator), theLTRB, the Flotation and the Plastics Line. An overview of the Galloo process withthe four modules as black boxes and all inputs and outputs is presented in Figure4.3. More detailed schemes of the unit processes in the modules are displayed inAppendix B. Each module will now be discussed in more detail.

4.2.2.1 Shredder

In the Shredder (see overview in Figure B.1), the material is comminuted in a ham-mer mill into pieces smaller than 100mm, whereafter a zig-zag air separator dividesthem in a light and heavy stream. The light stream on the one hand encounters anoverband magnet (placed above the conveyor belt) and an eddy current, producingan iron and aluminium output. This resulting fraction is called the Shredder LightFraction (SLF). On the other hand, the heavy fraction is treated with several mag-nets and copper handpicking to result in the Shredder Non-ferrous Fraction (SNF), apure ferrous output which is the main iron product of the company, and two streamscontaining both iron and copper. The stream which falls out of the ferrous streamafter the second magnet is composed of large pieces still containing a lot of copper.To better separate the iron and copper, this stream is sent back to the hammer millcontinuously. Material that is left over when the module is shut down is treated withthe next batch. Finally, the SLF, SNF and aluminium stream are joined, and sentto the second module, the LTRB.

4.2.2.2 LTRB

The second module is the LTRB (Ligne pour le Traitement du Résidu de Broyage,shredder-residue treatment line, see overview in Figure B.2), where the main purposeis the separation of organics and non-ferrous metals. A drum sieve divides the streamin a small (< 35mm) and large (> 35mm) fraction, which both go to an air separatorto take out dust, while the fraction smaller than 4mm is first taken out of the smallfraction. Both streams are then joined, washed, and sent to the density separator,which performs the separation into floats (organics) and sinks (non-ferrous metals).This is done using magnetite added to water, to bring the density to 1.22 kg/l.Both streams are then washed in separated wash drums, and the density medium isrecovered. Further on, an overband magnet takes out some residual ferrous materialin the sinks, after which they are sent to the Flotation, while the floats go to thePlastics Line module.


BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo

Shredder(Zerdirator)

LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line

2. Non-ferrous sinks 1. Plastics/rubbers not pure

WWTP Water

Arcelor (MR)4. Fe pure from overband (light)

6. Al pure

Metallo Chimique (MR/DC)

5. Fe not pure from overband (heavy)


7. Motors/transformers not pure from Cu handpicking

OVMB (LD)10. Sludge

OVMB (LD)9. Dust

WWTP11. Waste water

1.SLF 2.SNF

3. Fe pure

Vibrosort5. 0-4mm

Vanheede (LD)6. Residues: light fractions zig zag

3. Fe not pure from overband

WWTP8. Waste water

Vanheede (LD)7. Wastes from water and

medium recovery

WWTP

Cofermin

Water

Magnetite

Galloo Plastics (MR)

1. Floats: good plastics

Söderenergi (ER)2. Sinks: bad plasticsWWTP

Omya

Water

CaCO3 WWTP

WWTP Water

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe

FeSi

1. >120mm

2. 0-12mm

Eldan shredder + Eddy current

3. Light metals 12-30

4. Light metals 30-120

Optical sorting5. Al 12-40 (with PCBs)

6. Al 40-120 (with PCBs)

Vibrosort8. Drops from eddy currents

Zerdirator Shredder

9. Fe 20-120 from overband

10. Fe 20-120 from head roller

Sieve drum11. Heavy metals 12-50

Combisense12. Heavy metals 50-120

Indaver (TD)13. Heavy plastics/rubbers 12-30

Indaver (TD)14. Heavy plastics/rubbers 30-120

Vanheede (LD)15. Waste sand

Vanheede (LD)16. Tissue from rotosieve

WWTP17. Waste water

OVE rest

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE

EnvironmentAir

EnvironmentAir

Recycled gasoline/ gas grid

Gasoline/gas

Luminus Electricity

Luminus Electricity

Luminus Electricity

Environment Air

Luminus Electricity

Environment Air

4. Oversize

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)

a. Motors/transformers not pure

b. Fe pure

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure

a. Motors/transformers not pure

c. Cu & Cu alloys not pure

Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 12-40

b. PCB

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 40-120

b. PCB

China (MR/LD)

Imog (DC)b. Sand

a. Cables

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)

a. Cu & Cu alloys pure

b. Fe pure

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand

b. Mix of metals

OVMB (LD)

Raffmetal (MR)a. Al pure 12-30

b. Wastes


OVMB (LD)

Raffmetal (MR)a. Al pure 30-120

b. Wastes

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)

a. Cu & Cu alloys pure

b. Fe pure

Jewo (MR)a. Stainless

steel

China (MR/DC)c. 12-30mm

Combisense

d. 30-50mm

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)

a. Stainlesssteel

b. Remaining metals

Handpicking Aurubis (MR)a. Remaining

Metals

b. Remainings

8. Reshred leftovers

Imog (DC)b. Stones

Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm

b. 4-12mm

e. oversize

Destination LegendRU (re-use), MR (material recycling)ER (energy recovery),DC (down cycling)

TD (thermal disposal),LD (landfill disposal)

Belgium

Europe

World

Further TreatmentHazardous and valuable materials

3. Waste water

Figure 4.3: Overview of the Galloo process, with all input and output streams, and theirrespective origins or destinations.


4.2.2.3 Flotation

The Flotation module (see overview in Figure B.3) is a quite complex system, ofwhich the main purpose is to separate various non-ferrous metals. First, a drumsieve separates particles smaller than 12mm and larger than 120mm, which are sentback to the LTRB and Shredder, respectively. The remaining stream is washed andsent to the first density separator (B1, density varying between 2.1 and 2.2 kg/l, withferrosilicon (FeSi) as a medium). The floats are washed and the medium is recovered,whereafter the stream is sieved (holes of 30mm) and sent over an eddy current, whichresults in two streams of light metals and two streams of heavy plastics.

The sinks of the B1 density separator are sent to a second density separator (B2,density varying between 3.0 and 3.1 kg/l, again with FeSi). The sinks are washed,dried and sieved (holes of 40mm), after which both fractions each go over an eddycurrent and magnet. This results in two fractions of aluminium (main aluminiumproduct of the plant), a fraction of drops and a fraction which contains both ironand aluminium, which is sent back to the Shredder module.

The sinks of the B2 density separator subsequently encounter two magnets (overbandand head roller), which produce two streams with residual ferrous material, afterwhich the non-ferrous part is sieved (holes of 50mm). These two streams representthe main shares of non-ferrous heavy metals.

4.2.2.4 Plastics Line

The floats coming from the LTRB are sent to the Plastics Line (see overview inFigure B.4), where they are subjected to another density separation step (densityof 1.1 kg/l, using calcium carbonate as a density medium), producing ‘bad’ plastics,which cannot be recycled and are sold as a Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), and ‘good’plastics, which are the main plastics output and are recycled at Galloo Plastics, afterbeing shredded to a uniform size of 25mm.

4.2.2.5 Post Treatments

Not all streams leaving the four main modules are ready to be sold yet, as someof them need some further treatment step. The post treatments used after eachmodule can be seen on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on the respectivemodule schemes in Appendix B. The used further treatment steps are:

• A smaller shredder (called Eldan) is used to further reduce in size and purifythe main iron output from the shredder and the ferrous output from the LTRB,to result in pure ferrous streams and fractions that contain copper and iron.The two light metal fractions coming from the Flotation are treated with theEldan as well, followed by an eddy current, to separated wastes from the purealuminium.


• The Vibrosort is a machine that crushes the material and separates themthrough a vibrating screen. In this way, the fraction smaller than 4mm fromthe LTRB and the drops from the eddy currents from the Flotation are treated.This further treatment of the first fraction results in the separation of sandand a mix of metals, while the second fraction produces sand and cables.

• Optical sorting uses a camera to detect different materials and is utilized toseparate pure aluminium and residual low-grade PCBs in the aluminium frac-tions coming from the Flotation.

• For the small fraction of the heavy metals from the Flotation, a sieve drumwith holes of 4mm, 12mm, 30mm and 50mm is used to separate the streaminto different size fractions.

• After the sieve drum, the 30− 50mm fraction is sent to a Combisense machine,which uses a combination of optical and sensor sorting to separate stainlesssteel. This is also used to treat the large fraction of the heavy metals from theFlotation.

It can be noted that all of these post treatments only use electricity for their opera-tion, which is taken into account for the data inventory.

4.2.2.6 Internal Transport

The Galloo plant in Menen consist of three sites located close to each other: onewhere the Depollution takes place, one for the Shredder, and one for the LTRB,Flotation and Plastics Line. Internal transport with trucks is thus needed fromthe Depollution to the Shredder and further on to the LTRB. Transport with wheelloaders to feed the material into the modules is not taken into account, as insufficientdata were available and the expected impact is small.

4.2.2.7 Wastewater Treatment

The Shredder uses water in the dedusting system, while the LTRB, Flotation andPlastics Line have water consumption for density separation and washing the mate-rial. This water is treated somewhat, mainly to recovery the density medium, andis recycled within each module during operation. This treatment process producessome wastes in the LTRB and Flotation, as is indicated on the respective figuresfor each module. After operation, the wastewater is sent to the central wastewatertreatment plant (WWTP) of the company, treating the wastewater coming from alloperations, as well as all rain falling on the company area. This treated wastewateris then used again throughout the plant, so it can be assumed that no fresh waterneeds to be used. Surplus treated wastewater is discharged into the adjacent Leieriver, if necessary. In assessing the operation of the WWTP, only the electricity usewas taken into account, since no data were available on other inputs or outputs.


4.2.2.8 Air Treatment

Each module has a system to prevent dust from escaping into the atmosphere throughdrawing air, and treating this air. This treatment uses electricity, and in the case ofthe Shredder water as well. The utility consumptions of the air treatment systemsare incorporated into the overall utility consumption of each respective module.

4.2.3 Process Description of the Background Recycling Processes

It was always assumed that the different companies treating similar waste streamsuse the same technology for recycling, except when executed in countries expectedto have lower treatment efficiencies, such as China.

4.2.3.1 Iron/Steel Recycling

The streams containing pure iron and steel coming from Galloo are sent to Arcelorin Luxembourg or Jewo in the Netherlands, where it is further recycled to secondarysteel. An electric arc furnace (EAF) is used, which utilizes electricity to remelt theiron. The process can be fed with 100% iron scrap material, or mixed with newscrap coming from steel-product manufacturers or primary steel making operations(Schlüp et al., 2009).

4.2.3.2 Aluminium Recycling

The aluminium outputs are further treated at Aleris in Belgium and Raffmetal inItaly. Aluminium recycling is a remelting process, where the scrap is heated to about700− 800 ◦C, after which it becomes liquid, can be further refined and cast into anew form. This secondary aluminium production requires less energy than primaryproduction (90− 95% savings) and can be performed without loss of value of thematerial (Cui and Forssberg, 2003; Schlüp et al., 2009).

4.2.3.3 Copper Recycling

Streams containing other non-ferrous metals are sent to Metallo Chimique or Auru-bis, both in Belgium, or to China. Copper is the main component to be recovered,but the fractions can include iron, zinc and/or organics as well. Secondary copperproduction (see Figure 4.4) is done according to the purity of the copper stream.The flow with the lowest purity, containing up to 30% Cu, is fed to a blast furnace,where it is reduced through reducing agents such as cokes, which can be replacedby plastic impurities in the feed material. The iron, lime and silica, already presentor added, go to the slag, which can be used as a construction material. The zinc isreduced, vaporized and oxidized and ends up in the off gases as zinc oxide, where itcan be collected and further recovered.


Figure 4.4: Flowsheet for secondary copper production (Krippner et al., 1999).

The resulting metal fraction, called black copper, is subsequently treated in a con-verter, where copper scrap with a copper content of about 75% can be added aswell. Here, the copper content is increased to about 95% in a product referred to asblister-copper. This is smelted again in an anode furnace, together with pure copperscrap, to be refined to about 99% purity copper anodes. Even further electrolyticrefining can raise the purity to 99.99% in copper cathodes (Classen et al., 2009;Kang and Schoenung, 2005; Krippner et al., 1999).

4.2.3.4 Precious Metals Recycling

The low-grade PCBs are sent to Umicore in Belgium, while the mix of metals fromthe Vibrosort goes to Aurubis, to separate and recover the metals. The Umicoreintegrated smelter and refinery plant (see Figure 4.5) is one of the few able to effi-ciently treat these complex streams containing many different (precious) metals andpossibly organics, and their process is described here. The procedure starts with a


Figure 4.5: Overview of the Umicore integrated smelter and refinery plant (Hagelüken,2005).

pyrometallurgy step, where the material is smelted at about 1 200 ◦C to separate thevaluable materials from impurities. Here, the organic compounds can act as a reduc-ing agent or fuel, thus replacing cokes. The smelting results in two metal containingphases: the liquid copper phase, where the precious metals dissolve in, and the leadslag which contains most other (special) metals.

The copper subsequently goes to the leach-electro-winning plant, which is a combi-nation of hydro- and electrometallurgy. Here, the stream is dissolved with sulfuricacid, which produces copper sulfate and a residue containing concentrated preciousmetals. The copper sulfate solution is then further refined through electrowinningto produce pure copper, while the precious metals are recovered one by one at theprecious metals refinery using a combination of pyro- and hydrometallurgy.

The lead slag phase from the smelter is further treated in the lead blast furnace, toproduce lead bullion where the special metals and silver are collected, while the slagcreated can be sold as a construction material. Nickel speiss is produced as well,


and is further processed to produce nickel sulphate. The lead bullion is subsequentlyrefined to produce pure metals and two residues containing silver and containingindium-tellurium, which receive additional purification in the precious and specialmetals refinery, respectively (Cui and Zhang, 2008; Hagelüken, 2005; Schlüp et al.,2009).

4.2.3.5 Plastics Recycling

The ‘good’ plastics suitable for recycling are polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS),polypropylene (PP) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). These polymers con-stitute 15%, 50%, 15% and 20% of the plastics stream, respectively. This recyclingis realized at Galloo Plastics, a sister company of Galloo located just across the bor-der in France. Here, density separation is used for the separation of the differentpolymers, whereafter extrusion takes place to produce recycled granulates which canbe used to produce new plastic products. Styrene butadiene styrene (SBS) is usedas a filler, while carbon black acts as a pigment.

4.2.3.6 Plastics Incineration

The other plastics streams coming from Galloo are not recycled, but a part is in-cinerated with energy recovery. This can be done with a high or low quality fuel.The former is done at Söderenergi in Sweden, where heat for district heating (75%of energetic output) and electricity (25% of energetic output) is produced througha combined heat and power plant. The efficiency is as high as 110% of the LowerHeating Value (LHV), as condensation is used to recover residual energy from thewater vapor in the flue gas (Natunen, 2010).

The heavy plastics originating from the flotation consist mainly of PVC, which canlead to emission of dioxins, other polychlorinated biphenyls and furans when burned(see Section 2.2.1.2). They are therefore treated at the hazardous waste incineratorof Indaver in Belgium, where the waste stream is incinerated in a fluidized bedincinerator with extensive flue gas treatment. Energy recovery through electricityproduction is performed as well, albeit with a lower quality fuel and efficiency thanat Söderenergi, as 27% of the energetic value is recovered (Vermeulen et al., 2012).

4.2.3.7 Other Recycled Streams

Cables from the Flotation module are sent to China, where the copper is separatedfrom the plastic coating using a shredder, and is recycled, while the resulting plasticsare landfilled. Flows containing sand and stones can be reused as a constructionmaterial without further processing.


4.2.4 Estimations and Assumptions

All estimations and assumptions made for the analysis of the Galloo plant wereprovided, or checked and confirmed by the company (Vanheule, 2013; Waignein,2013, 2014).

4.2.4.1 General

• In making the mass balance, fractions that did not contribute to a significantchange in mass were left out, such as waste hammer blades from the hammermill, air used for the air separators and the very small amounts of polymerand cation added in the LTRB wastewater treatment.

• Density medium that was lost, was assumed to end up in the wastewater,which contains no other dry materials.

• Differences in the amount of input and output material in each module, poten-tially caused by matter falling off conveyor belts or sticking to the installation,were distributed proportionally over the output flows of each module. Thiswas done since this material is not really lost, as the installation is cleanedfrom time to time, and the recovered stream is treated.

• The water contents for all streams were estimated and are presented in Ap-pendix C.

• A working day was presumed to include nine hours.• Flows that are recirculated within the system, as well as the aluminium flow

from the Shredder to the LTRB, are treated in a different batch, separatelyfrom new waste material. In this work though, the treatment was presentedas a continuous system, where all of these flows are treated together with themain waste stream.

4.2.4.2 Shredder

The sludge consumption in the dedusting system was assumed to amount to 2 000 kg/d.Estimations of the composition of some product streams from the Shredder can beseen in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1: Shredder output composition estimations. The stream numbers and names canbe found on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on the module scheme (FigureB.1).

Number Stream name Composition

6. Al pure 80% Al 20% organics8. Reshred leftovers 50% Fe 50% Cu9. Dust 100% mineral10. Sludge 100% mineral


4.2.4.3 LTRB

The composition for the 0-4mm output was taken from an analysis of this stream,where one light fraction was not analyzed, which was assumed to be mineral. Afterthe Vibrosort operation on this stream, it was assumed that the organic and mineralfractions end up in the sand. Other composition estimations are presented in Table4.2

Table 4.2: LTRB output composition estimations. The stream numbers and names can befound on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on the module scheme (FigureB.2).


6. Light fractions zig zag 100% organics7. Wastes from water and medium recovery 100% mineral

4.2.4.4 Flotation

The dryer is presumed to consume recycled gasoline from waste cars for 95% of time,while natural gas is used for the remaining time. The water vapor lost when dryingwas not quantified, so this is attributed to the waste water in the mass balance.The size distribution of the Heavy metals 12-50 after the Sieve drum is as follows:0− 4mm: 9%; 4− 12mm: 13%; 12− 30mm: 53%; 30− 50mm: 17%; oversize:8%. Further composition estimations are given in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3: Flotation output composition estimations. The stream numbers and names canbe found on the overview scheme (Figure 4.3) and on the module scheme (FigureB.3).


1. Residues in Oversize > 120mm 100% organic2. Residues in Fines 0− 12mm 100% organic

3. & 4. Light metals 12− 30 & 30− 120 50% Al 50% organic8. Drops from eddy currents 60% cables 40% mineral

11. Heavy metals 12− 50 60% stainless steel 30% copper10% zinc

11d. 30− 50mm of stream 11. 35% stainless steel 65% copper/zinc12. Heavy metals 50− 120 57.5% stainless steel 28.8% copper

9.6% zinc 4% mineral16. Tissue from rotosieve 100% mineral

4.3. Material Flow Analysis 39

4.2.4.5 Plastics Line

No information for the water use was available, so a consumption of 1m3/h wasestimated.

4.3 Material Flow Analysis

A material flow analysis (see Section 2.1.2.1) was performed to study the routesdifferent materials take through the process of Galloo. To accomplish this, the wastestream was subdivided into five material categories: ferrous, aluminium, other non-ferrous metals, organics, and minerals. The organics are estimated to be composedof 85.48% plastics, 3.73% rubbers, and 10.79% wood, based on literature (Widmeret al., 2005). For the non-ferrous metals, the RepTool and expert knowledge wereused to establish the elemental composition, while the contents of the low-gradePCBs were taken from literature (Mecucci and Scott, 2002), shown in Table 4.4,which corresponds to the suggestion given by Hagelüken (2005) that the gold contentof low-grade PCBs is lower than 100 ppm.

Table 4.4: Composition of the low-grade PCBs coming from the Flotation (Mecucci andScott, 2002).

Cu Pb Sn Ni Au Ag Pd

Concentration (ppm) 72870 972 1253 9.4 10.6 17.9 90.6

The composition of each output flow was defined according to the subdivision inthe five categories, with information from the RepTool and expert knowledge (seeSection 4.2.4). A mass balance was performed for each module, as well as a partialmass balance for each material category within each module.

The destinations for the output products were analyzed as well, and grouped intofive operation categories according to the kind of process the company uses: materialrecycling (MR), energy recovery (ER), downcycling (DC), thermal disposal (TD),and landfill disposal (LD). When conducting ER, a high quality fuel is incineratedwith a high efficiency, while TD also recovers energy, but only with a low qualityfuel and efficiency (see Section 4.2.3.6).

As mentioned in Section 2.2, the EU is aware of the importance of certain critical rawmaterials, and it is vital in this perspective to recycle materials within the Europeanmarket. Therefore, an analysis of the geographical destination of the outputs wasmade as well, categorizing the further recycling destinations into Belgium, the restof Europe and the rest of the world.


4.4 (Exergetic) Life Cycle Assessment

To assess the environmental impact of the studied system, an (exergetic) life cycleassessment was performed (see Section 2.1.2.3). The result is presented first of allin CEENE (in megajoule exergy or MJex), representing the cumulative exergy ex-traction from the natural environment, while the Carbon Footprint, expressed in kgCO2-equivalents, is used to assess the emissions of greenhouse gases.

These impacts were quantified on a process level, taking into account the treatmentmodules, on a plant level, including supporting systems like the WWTP and internaltransport, and on an industrial level, looking at the whole recycling chain, made upout of the mechanical separation and secondary material and service (e.g. electricity)production. The collected mass data were used for the plant level, while the databaseof Ecoinvent version 2.2 (Ecoinvent Centre, 2010) was utilized to provide informationon the industrial level. Moreover, to quantify the environmental benefits or costs ofthe recycling chain, the latter was compared with the scenario where all e-waste waslandfilled, and all materials and services were supplied using the primary productionchain.

To implement the analysis in Ecoinvent, all the outputs of the Galloo plant weregrouped according to the composition of the stream and the destination, which re-sulted in output 17 categories (see further on Figure 5.8 in Chapter 5).

The transport in the primary production chain was taken out of the analysis, as thecollection of electronic waste was not included in this work as well. This ensures afair comparison of the two production systems. The Ecoinvent processes were alsomodified to cover the electricity mix of the country where the treatment operationwas performed. Furthermore, there is no Ecoinvent dataset available for ferrosilicon,so the MG-silicon dataset was used as a proxy. This dataset was selected as it is alsoused as proxy for ferrosilicon in an Ecoinvent process for aluminium scrap processing(Classen et al., 2009).

In this study, copper containing flows were treated in Belgium, as well as in China,and the efficiencies of the recycling process were adjusted according to the locationwhere it was performed. Furthermore, because of lack of data available on therecovery pathways and efficiencies for tin, and because of the low amounts present,the recycling of this metal was not taken into account. For the landfilling activity, adataset describing this for municipal solid waste was used.

4.4.1 Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environ-ment

The CEENE is an LCA method to ascertain the resource fingerprint of a system,using following natural resource categories: abiotic renewable resources, fossil fuels,

4.4. (Exergetic) Life Cycle Assessment 41

nuclear energy, metal ores, minerals and mineral aggregates, water resources, landand biotic resources, and atmospheric resources (Dewulf et al., 2007).

The total natural resource fingerprint of a certain product or process is calculatedbased on all elementary flows, which indicate resource flows extracted from the envi-ronment to supply for that product or process. This CEENEj of product or processj thus can be calculated using the summation of all exergy contents Xi of elementaryflow i, multiplied by the cumulative amount aij from elementary flow i, necessary toobtain product j, as displayed in Equation 4.1 (Dewulf et al., 2007).

CEENEj =∑i

(Xi × aij) (4.1)

4.4.2 Carbon Footprint

To establish the Carbon Footprint of the system, an LCA with the ReCiPe v.1.08method was used, which defines various midpoint and endpoint indicators. A mid-point indicator is a point in the cause-effect chain of a particular endpoint impactcategory. For the case of the Carbon Footprint, climate change is the midpointindicator, while this climate change can cause some damage to human or ecosys-tem health, which are the endpoint indicators (Bare et al., 2000; Goedkoop et al.,2013). To calculate the Carbon Footprint in this work, the climate change midpointindicator was thus used, which assesses the amount of CO2-equivalents the systememits into the atmosphere. The factors determining the climate change potentialare derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) FourthAssessment Report of 2007.

Different approaches exist to deal with uncertainty in the environmental mechanisms.Here, the hierarchist perspective is used, which is based on the most common policyprinciples regarding time-frame and other issues, in contrast to the individualistperspective, which is less protective and preventive, and the egalitarian perspective,which is the most precautionary (Goedkoop et al., 2013).

Chapter 5

Results and Discussion

All results in this section are presented in proportion to the functional unit of100 000 kg of OVE rest treated, as mentioned in Section 4.1.3.

5.1 Galloo Recycling

5.1.1 Life Cycle Inventory

The results for the life cycle inventory for the mechanical separation of electronicwaste at Galloo, as well as the plastics recycling at Galloo Plastics, are presented inTable 5.1. The transport is expressed in tonne kilometers (tkm), which multipliesthe transported weight with the travelled distance, so 1 tkm denotes the transportof 1 tonne over 1 km.

5.1.2 Material Flow Analysis

The results of the total dry mass balance are presented in Figure 5.1. For the partialmass balances per material category, the reader is referred to Appendix D. As themass balance displayed in Figure 5.1 is a dry mass balance, the water inputs to thedifferent modules are zero. The dry material content in the wastewater output of therespective modules is the density medium that is lost, as mentioned in Section 4.2.4.Figure 5.1 displays the different destinations of the output fractions as well, bothregarding material use and geographical destination, as is presented in the legend.

The results of the dry mass balance indicate that the main output from the Shredderis ferrous material going to secondary steel production. The LTRB has only onereasonably large output stream, the 0− 4mm fraction, as the rest of the treatedmaterial is separated and sent to the Flotation and Plastics Line. The Flotationseparates its input into numerous smaller fractions, of which the most importantones are the aluminium fractions, both heavy metals fractions (containing mainlycopper and zinc), the 0− 12mm going back to the LTRB, the drops from the eddycurrents, and both heavy plastics fractions going to hazardous waste incineration.

43

44 Chapter 5: Results and Discussion

Table 5.1: Life cycle inventory for the Galloo mechanical separation plant and Galloo Plas-tics, with a functional unit of 100 000 kg OVE rest treated.

Input Amount Unit Origin

ShredderWaste material 101 807 kg Depollution plant & recirculated materialElectricity 3 467 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)Water 1 907 kg WWTPLTRBWaste material 52 233 kg Shredder & recirculated materialElectricity 1 373 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)Magnetite 623 kg CoferminWater 28 710 kg WWTPFlotationWaste material 27 692 kg LTRBElectricity 672 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)Ferrosilicon 130 kg HafsilNatural gas 74 MJ Belgian gridGasoline 1 400 MJ Recycled carsWater 29 348 kg WWTPPlastics LineWaste material 15 530 kg LTRBElectricity 295 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)Calcium carbonate 326 kg OmyaWater 6 526 kg WWTPPost treatmentsWaste material 69 181 kg Shredder, LTRB & FlotationElectricity 1 178 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)WWTPWaste water 61 444 kg Shredder, LTRB, Flotation & Plastics LineElectricity 61 kWh Luminus (Belgian grid)Internal transportWaste material 150 733 kg Depollution plant & ShredderTruck transport 153 tkm n/aGalloo PlasticsWaste material 13 325 kg Plastics LineElectricity 7 528 kWh EDF (French grid)Calcium carbonate 720 kg n/aCarbon black 240 kg n/aSBS 360 kg n/a

5.1. Galloo Recycling 45

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line

2. Non-ferrous sinks: 27 692kg 1. Plastics/rubbers not pure: 15 530kg

WWTP Water: 0kg

Arcelor (MR)4. Fe pure from overband (light): 459kg

6. Al pure: 553kg


5. Fe not pure from overband (heavy): 0kg


7. Motors/transformers not pure from Cu handpicking: 2 546kg

OVMB (LD)10. Sludge: 412kg

OVMB (LD)9. Dust: 1 940kg

WWTP11. Waste water: 0kg

1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 47 402kg

Vibrosort5. 0-4mm: 6 669kg

Vanheede (LD)6. Residues: light fractions zig zag: 1 194kg

3. Fe not pure from overband: 425kg


Vanheede (LD)7. Wastes from water and medium recovery: 176kg

WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 623kg


1. Floats: good plastics: 13 325kg

Söderenergi (ER)2. Sinks: bad plastics: 2 205kgWWTP

Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 395kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 359kg

FeSi: 134kg

1. >120mm: 452kg

2. 0-12mm: 3 245kg


3. Light metals 12-30: 154kg


Optical sorting5. Al 12-40 (with PCBs): 1 940kg

6. Al 40-120 (with PCBs): 2 348kg

Vibrosort8. Drops from eddy currents: 2 016kg

Zerdirator Shredder

9. Fe 20-120 from overband: 87kg

10. Fe 20-120 from head roller: 189kg

Sieve drum11. Heavy metals 12-50: 4 770kg

Combisense12. Heavy metals 50-120: 2 242kg

Indaver (TD)13. Heavy plastics/rubbers 12-30: 2 349kg


Vanheede (LD)15. Waste sand: 51kg

Vanheede (LD)16. Tissue from rotosieve: 10kg


OVE rest: 100 000kg

Dry material

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE

4. Oversize: 547kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)

a. Motors/transformers not pure: 262kg

b. Fe pure: 163kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 46 425kg


c. Cu & Cu alloys not pure: 299kg

Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 12-40: 1 931kg

b. PCB: 10kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 40-120: 2 337kg

b. PCB: 12kg

China (MR/LD)

Imog (DC)b. Sand: 806kg

a. Cables: 1 210kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)

a. Cu & Cu alloys pure: 17kg

b. Fe pure: 70kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 3 609kg

b. Mix of metals: 3 060kg

OVMB (LD)

Raffmetal (MR)a. Al pure 12-30: 79kg

b. Wastes: 75kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 63kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 185kg


steel: 1 291kg

China (MR/DC)c. 12-30mm:

2 524kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 809kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)

a. Stainlesssteel: 283kg

b. Remaining metals: 526kg


Metals: 861kg

b. Remainings: 950kg

Imog (DC)b. Stones: 90kg

Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 429kg

b. 4-12mm: 619kge. oversize:

389kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 395kg

2.SNF48 434

8. Reshred leftovers: 61kg

Figure 5.1: Dry mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant.


Finally, the main output of the Plastics Line are the ‘good’ plastics going to recycling,with a small share for the ‘bad’ plastics sold as an RDF.

The composition of the input material, as calculated using the compositions of theoutputs, is presented in Table 5.2. These numbers are in the same range as the onesmentioned in literature (see Section 2.3.1). The distribution of the input material tothe different operation categories, as well as further on to the various geographicaldestinations, is shown in Figure 5.2. A summary of the operation category with whicheach material category is treated is presented in Table 5.3, while the percentages ofthe total output going to each operation category and geographical destination aredisplayed in Table 5.4.

Table 5.2: Composition of the incoming OVE rest waste stream.

Material category %

Ferrous 56.02Aluminium 5.04Other non-ferrous metals 4.16Organics 30.36Minerals 4.41

Figure 5.2: Sankey diagram presenting the material flow analysis, indicating the materialand operation categories, as well as the geographical destinations. MR: mate-rial recycling; ER: energy recovery; DC: downcycling; TD: thermal disposal;LD: landfill disposal.


Table 5.3: Summary of the operational destinations for each material category (%).

Material category Material Energy Down- Thermal Landfill Totalrecycling recovery cycling disposal disposal

Ferrous 90.81 0.00 9.19 0.00 0.00 100Aluminium 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100Other non-ferrous metals 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100Organics 43.88 7.26 9.30 31.94 7.61 100Minerals 0.00 0.00 41.58 0.00 58.42 100

Table 5.4: Summary of the operational and geographical destinations of the outputs.

Operation category % Geographical destination %

Material recycling 73.40 Belgium 5.07Europe 66.68World 1.65

Energy recovery 2.21 Europe 2.21Downcycling 9.81 Belgium 8.17

World 1.64Thermal disposal 9.70 Belgium 9.70Landfill disposal 4.89 Belgium 3.92

World 0.97

The material flow analysis in Figure 5.2 and Table 5.3 shows that, for the ferrousfraction almost all of the material goes to material recycling, and is kept withinEurope. A much smaller share is downcycled, as it is contained in a fraction withother non-ferrous metals and is subsequently treated in a copper smelter. Here itends up in the slag, which is used for construction purposes (see Section 4.2.3.3).

The aluminium fractions are sent entirely to material recycling, both in Belgium andin the rest of Europe. The non-ferrous metals are fully recycled as well, mainly inBelgium, but in China for the cables and some heavy metal fractions (about 40%

of the non-ferrous metals), where due to lower labor costs further manual sorting ofstreams with a small particle size can be performed.

Parts of the organic streams are sent to all various operation categories. Around44% is sent to material recycling, which is performed in the rest of Europe, as theGalloo Plastics plant is located just across the border in France. The second biggestfraction (about 32%) are the heavy plastics sent to hazardous waste incineration forthermal disposal. The part treated in a landfill is around 8%, and a portion of around9% is used for downcycling, which in the case of plastics means use as a reductionagent in a smelter (see Sections 4.2.3.3 and 4.2.3.4), or as a construction material as


a fraction ending up in sand. The remaining fraction of around 7% is utilized forenergy recovery as an RDF. Finally, the minerals are downcycled domestically foruse as a construction material (about 40%) or landfilled.

5.1.3 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment

The results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo mechanical separation plant andGalloo Plastics, on the plant level, are presented in Table 5.5. A graphical repre-sentation of the former per contributing utility or process is shown in Figure 5.3,while this is displayed per impact category in Figure 5.4. The total CEENE for themechanical separation plant, as well as for the Galloo Plastics plant, is shown furtheron Figure 5.5.

Figure 5.3: Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo mechanical separation plant percontributing utility or process.

Figure 5.4: Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo mechanical separation plant perimpact category.

The Shredder has the biggest impact of all four main modules, which can be explainedby the simple fact that it treats by far the most material (see Table 5.1). The LTRBand the Flotation have similar impacts, although the LTRB treats almost double the


Tab

le5.

5:CEENE

resultsof

theGalloomecha

nicals

eparationplan

tan

dtheGallooPlasticsplan

t(M

Jexergy

/100000kgOVE

rest

treated).

Abiotic

renewab

leFo

ssil

Nuclear

Metal

Mineralsan

dWater

Lan

dan

dAtm

osph

eric

Total

resources

fuels

energy

ores

mineral

aggregates

resources

biotic

resources

resources

Shredder

electricity(B

E)

440

15347

20404

54

1929

502

038

632

subtotal

440

15347

20404

54

1929

502

038

632

LTRB

electricity(B

E)

174

6080

8083

22

764

199

015

305

magnetite

693

6411

2529

1861

1629

508

011

849

subtotal

868

12491

10612

2163

2393

707

027

154

Flotation

electricity(B

E)

852977

3958

11

374

970

7494

ferrosilicon

6522

9012

875

3511

275

4366

021

564

naturalgas

090

10

00

00

91gasolin

e2

3734

00

42

079

subtotal

6610

12116

4867

5512

653

4466

029

228

Plastics

electricity(B

E)

381307

1738

00

164

430

3290

Line

calcium

carbon

ate

4189

420

6015

380

0627

subtotal

791396

1779

161

179

422

03917

Post

electricity(B

E)

150

5217

6936

21

656

171

013

133

treatm

ents

subtotal

150

5217

6936

21

656

171

013

133

WW

TP

electricity(B

E)

8272

362

00

349

0685

subtotal

8272

362

00

349

0685

Internal

trucktran

sport

16614

521

416

270

731

tran

sport

subtotal

16614

521

416

270

731

Lan

dfill

organics

9480

380

2529

141

0721

disposals

minerals

4494

150

2626

620

628

subtotal

13974

531

5155

202

01350

Plant

infrastructure

1392

13040

1961

396

391

1227

18312

036

718

Total

Mechan

ical

separation

9575

61467

47026

431

1087

7143

24818

0151547

Galloo

electricity(F

R)

4430

8094

67548

129

3188

537

083

818

Plastics

carbon

black

3121

400

805

5131

930

21744

SBS

218

2183

51110

611

1606

145

024

933

calcium

carbon

ate

91196

920

133

33838

01383

land

filldisposal

15829

641

4449

221

01222

infrastructure

207

1900

261

6255

176

2278

04939

Total

GallooPlastics

4991

54255

69155

85257

5183

4112

0138038

Total

Galloo

14566

115722

116181

516

1344

12326

28930

0289585


weight of the Flotation. The Flotation thus has the largest resource consumptionper mass treated material of the four main modules, amounting to 1.06MJ/kg (cf.0.39MJ/kg for the Shredder, 0.53MJ/kg for the LTRB, and 0.25MJ/kg for the Plas-tics Line). This is caused almost entirely by the use a density medium (ferrosilicon)with a very large impact, which is about nine and 80 times larger than the one usedfor the LTRB (magnetite) and Plastics Line (calcium carbonate), respectively. ThePlastics Line has a small impact compared with the other modules, as it does nottreat much material and uses a density medium with a low impact

Electricity consumption causes by far the major resource impact for the mechanicalseparation plant, apart from the plant infrastructure. For the Shredder, the resourceconsumption is caused solely by electricity consumption, and is therefore for the ma-jority composed of fossil fuel and nuclear energy depletion, as these two resourcesprovide for almost all of the electricity mix in Belgium. The same pattern of dom-inating contributions of fossil fuels and nuclear energy consumption is showing forthe other modules, although the density media of the LTRB and Flotation have aninfluence as well. This is especially true for the Flotation, which has a relativelyhigher abiotic renewable resources and land and biotic resources impact because ofthis ferrosilicon consumption.

The impacts of the post treatments, which only consume electricity, are dominatedby the use of the Eldan shredder, especially the treatment of the 47 tonnes of mainferrous output from the Shredder module, which causes more than 80% of the re-source consumption of these post treatments. The WWTP, internal transport anddisposal activities all have minor impacts in comparison with the other components.

Finally, the impact of the plant infrastructure itself, which covers both the land areataken up and the infrastructure on this land area, is quite high, with fossil fuels andland and biotic resources consumption as the main constituents. The latter is causedby the fact that the plant takes up land area, around 0.1666 km2 (Google Maps areacalculater, 2014), upon which no other activities (e.g. agriculture) can be performed.To account for this, the amount of net primary production that theoretically couldbe produced is used to represent the consumed exergy quantity (Alvarenga et al.,2013). Furthermore, the fossil fuel consumption is caused by the construction andmaintenance of the office buildings and treatment infrastructure.

The CEENE results for the Galloo Plastics plant are illustrated graphically in Figure5.5. These results indicate that the impact is caused mostly by fossil fuel and nuclearenergy consumption. The electricity needed at Galloo Plastics causes the majority ofthe nuclear energy, renewable resources and water resources impact, as the electricitymix in France is dominated by nuclear energy, but uses some hydropower and windpower as well. It also is responsible for a smaller part of the fossil fuel consumption,while the rest is caused by carbon black and SBS, as these two products are organic


Figure 5.5: Results of the CEENE analysis for the Galloo Plastics plant, compared withthe total CEENE for the Galloo mechanical separation plant.

in nature and are produced from fossil fuels as the feedstock.

The total impact of the Galloo Plastics plant is relatively comparable with the me-chanical separation plant, although the former treats much less material. This isexplained by the fact that the extrusion process requires the plastics to be melted,which demands a lot of energy. The chemicals (carbon black and SBS) have a highspecific impact as well, although this is still lower than the one for ferrosilicon, buta lesser amount is consumed of the latter.

5.1.4 Carbon Footprint

The results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the Galloo mechanical separationplant is presented in Figure 5.6, while the total is shown in Figure 5.7, together withthe Carbon Footprint of the Galloo Plastics plant.

Figure 5.6: Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the Galloo mechanical separationplant.

Exactly the same pattern can be observed as for the CEENE results. This can beexplained by the fact that in the CEENE, energy consumption, and more specificallythe fossil fuels consumption, is the most important constituent, so the resulting


Figure 5.7: Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the Galloo Plastics plant, com-pared with the total Carbon Footprint of the mechanical separation plant.

carbon emissions are distributed in the same way. For the Galloo Plastics plant, thesame conclusion can be drawn as well.

5.2 Recycling Compared to Landfill

Two scenarios were considered regarding the management of electronic waste. Thefirst one is mechanical separation followed by end-processing for material or service(e.g. electricity) production, while the second option is the landfilling of the completewaste stream. For each product (material or service) of the recycling chain, a productwith an equivalent quality is subsequently produced through production from virginmaterials, which is shown schematically in Figure 5.8. Here, the 17 output categoriesaccording to composition and destination, as mentioned in Section 4.4.1, are shown,as well as the materials or services generated by the different companies from thevarious streams.

5.2.1 Considered Products

5.2.1.1 Chromium Steel 18/8

The pure iron outputs from Galloo are used to produce chromium steel in an electricarc furnace (see Section 4.2.3.1). In primary production, this steel is supposed tobe manufactured in a basic oxygen furnace, also called oxygen converter process, toproduce converter steel (Classen et al., 2009). Chromium steel, which is stainlesssteel, was chosen, as data on the primary and secondary production were readilyavailable for this type.

5.2.1.2 Copper

Copper is present in different output fractions, and is therefore produced through dif-ferent secondary production processes. Most of it is treated in a copper or integrated

5.2. Recycling Compared to Landfill 53

OVE rest Galloo

Chromium steel 18/8

Copper

Reducing agent

Zinc Oxide

LeadGold

SilverAluminium

Palladium

PP/PE/PS/ABS

Heat

Electricity

Arcelor/Jewo

1. Fe pure/Stainless steel

Metallo Chimique

Metallo Chimique

Aurubis

Aurubis

Aurubis

Aurubis

2. Fe & Cu 4. Cu pure

5. Cu & Zn

6. Fe, Cu & Zn

7. Mix of metals

Raffmetal/Aleris

Umicore

Imog China

ChinaGalloo Plastics

Söderenergi

Indaver

OVMB/Vanheede

8. Al pure

9. PCB

10. Sand & stones

11. Mix of metals

12. Cables

13. Good plastics

14. Waste plastics to RDF fuel

15. Heavy plastics

16. Organics to landfill

OVMB/Vanheede

17. Minerals to landfill

Cement

Nickel

Landfill

3. Fe, Cu & organics

Road aggregate

virg

in

pro

du

ctio

n

virg

in

pro

du

ctio

n

Iron ore

Hard coal

Raw materials (e.g. limestone) Gravel

Bauxite

Electricity mix Belgium

Zinc ore

Lead oreCopper ore Gold orePlatinum group

metals ore

Sliver ore Nickel oreResidue

woodCrude oil

Legend

ER (energy recovery), DC (down cycling)

TD (thermal disposal), LD (landfill disposal)

RU (re-use), MR (material recycling)

OVE rest

e-w

aste

re

cycl

ing

e-w

aste

re

cycl

ing

Primary production

Figure 5.8: Scheme of the comparison between the e-waste recycling and landfill scenario,the latter with virgin production of the materials and services provided throughrecycling. The legend indicates which operation category is used to producethe secondary product.

smelter, where secondary copper is produced, which is replaced through primary cop-per production from copper ores (Classen et al., 2009). The cable fractions on theother hand are processed to separate the copper core and plastic insulation material.The former is a product with a high copper content, and is therefore assumed todirectly replace blister-copper, which has a similar purity (see Section 4.2.3.3).

5.2.1.3 Zinc Oxide

The zinc present in the non-ferrous metal fractions which are treated in a smelterends up in the dust as zinc oxide (see Section 4.2.3.3). This is replaced by primaryproduction through the roasting of zinc concentrate stemming from zinc mining(Dove and Boustead, 1998).


5.2.1.4 Precious Metals, Nickel and Lead

The precious metals considered, as mentioned in Section 4.3, are gold, silver and pal-ladium, which are recovered through extensive processing and refining (see Section4.2.3.4). The primary production of these metals, including mining, leaching, strip-ping, electro-winning, roasting and smelting, from ore with very low metal contentsrequires even more efforts though (Classen et al., 2009).

Nickel present in the low-grade PCB fraction is recovered in the integrated smelteras well, just as lead (see Section 4.2.3.4). Primary production of nickel from ores isperformed through beneficiation, pyro- or hydrometallurgy and refining. For lead, theconcentrated ore is is processed through sinter oxidation and blast furnace reduction,or via direct smelting, after which further refining takes place (Classen et al., 2009).

5.2.1.5 Aluminium

Aluminium recovered in secondary production processes replaces primary aluminiumresulting from bauxite, which is the main virgin material source for aluminium. Thisis then further processed to produce aluminium hydroxide, aluminium oxide, andfinally metallic aluminium (Classen et al., 2009).

5.2.1.6 PP/PE/PS/ABS

The four polymers polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS) andacrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) are produced using crude oil as a startingmaterial (Hischier, 2007). These can be replaced by the respective recycled polymersfrom Galloo Plastics.

5.2.1.7 Reducing Agent

Organic fractions, present in streams treated in a smelter, act as an additional re-ducing agent and fuel. In this way, cokes are replaced (Schlüp et al., 2009). In thiswork, the organics are regarded as a reducing agent, and the replacement factor fromorganics to cokes is calculated using the respective carbon contents.

5.2.1.8 Cement

The slag from a blast furnace, in which the ferrous impurities in non-ferrous metalstreams are contained (see Section 4.2.3.3), can be used to produce cement, which isa one to one replacement for regular portland cement produced from virgin materials(Kellenberger et al., 2007; Siddique and Khan, 2011).

5.2.1.9 Road Aggregate

Sand and stones from Galloo are used as construction materials, thus replacing gravelproduced in quarries. Inorganics, present in the PCB fraction, end up in the slag at


the integrated smelter, which is used as construction material as well.

5.2.1.10 Heat and Electricity

The organics regarded as a high quality fuel (RDF) are incinerated in a cogenerationfacility in Sweden, to produce both heat used for urban heating and electricity. Thefacility where this is performed uses this RDF in combination with predominantlywood chips (Natunen, 2010). The heat from the RDF incineration is thus assumedto substitute heat produced through the burning of these wood chips, while theelectricity mix of Sweden is replaced by the produced electricity. The electricityproduced by the hazardous waste incineration plant substitutes the electricity mixof Belgium. The substitution factors were calculated based on the lower heatingvalues of the respective waste streams and the incinerator efficiencies.

5.2.2 Results of the Comparison

5.2.2.1 Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment

The total resource impact for the whole recycling chain on the industrial level isdisplayed in Figure 5.9, with the contributions of the Galloo mechanical separationplant, Galloo Plastics and the treatment operations carried out after Galloo (post-Galloo treatments). This shows that the contributions of the Galloo processes to thetotal burdens of the recycling scenario are small, and that the further treatments per-formed after Galloo are vastly dominant, with a contribution of over 96%, comparedto less than 2% each for both the Galloo plants.

Figure 5.9: Results of the CEENE analysis for the recycling scenario, with the Galloomechanical separation plant, Galloo Plastics and the post-Galloo treatements.

The CEENE results of these post-Galloo treatment operations and of the whole recy-cling chain, together with the CEENE results for the landfill scenario, are presentedin Table 5.6. A graphical summary of the post-Galloo treatment results is given inFigure 5.10. Since the impact of secondary steel production is so high, this is pre-sented on the left, next to the sum of all other impacts, which are shown separatelyon the right.


Tab

le5.6:

CEENE

resultsof

thePost-G

alloooperations

andtotalC

EENE

resultsfor

therecycling

scenario,com

paredwith

theCEENE

resultsfor

thelandfillscenario

(MJexergy

/100

000kgOVE

resttreated).

The

avoidedburden

isthe

differencebetw

eenthe

landfillandrecycling

scenario.PM:P

reciousMetals;LU

:Luxembourg;N

L:theNetherlands;IT

:Italy;BE:B

elgium;C

N:C

hina;SE:Sw

eden;EU:E

urope;GLO

:Global.

Produced

Abiotic

renew

able

Fossil

Nuclear

Metal

Minerals

and

Water

Lan

dan

dAtm

ospheric

Total

amou

nt

resources

fuels

energy

oresmineral

aggregatesresou

rcesbiotic

resources

resources

Secon

dary

steel(L

U)

94753kg

1234

4784589

581650

272244

41916

459246

602384

6090

7366

420Secon

dary

steel(N

L)

3026kg

39181

149149

19927

7806

5248261

12320

0237

167Secon

dary

Al(IT

)4892kg

7494

84140

3381

4395

4646302

4352

0110

528Secon

dary

CuBE)

1688kg

1513

29949

12579

3466

882110

2737

052

442Secon

dary

Cu(C

N)

584kg

98914

164684

1199

331535

1600

020

203Secon

dary

Cu,from

PM

treatment(B

E)

423kg

16244

880

1212

30

375Secon

dary

Cu,from

cable

treatment(G

LO)

242kg

00

00

00

00

0Secon

dary

Au(B

E)

9.93E-02

kg

31474

1780

2325

60

737Secon

dary

Ag(B

E)

1kg

685

320

44

10

132Secon

dary

Pd(B

E)

5.21E-02

kg

8130

490

67

20

203Secon

dary

Pb(B

E)

7,75E-02

kg

00

00

00

00

0Secon

dary

Ni(B

E)

20kg

13191

690

910

20

294Blast

furnace

slagcem

ent(B

E)

7011kg

75914

5954796

10878

876687

022

601Blast

furnace

slagcem

ent(C

N)

3287kg

5288361

8085

413740

5860

11441

Addition

alsep

aration(B

E)

4883kg

25739

8485

492

2070

1920

Plastics

incin

eration(B

E/S

E)

16659kg

2926750

99911

1081648

3220

10130

Cab

leplastics

disp

osal(C

N)

1210kg

7697225

2239

997

2232

6230

13195

Total

Post-G

alloo

1286101

4905778

696948

261326

19123

270455

408058

07847788

Total

Gallo

o14566

115722

116181

516

1344

12326

28930

0289585

Total

Recy

cling

1300667

5021500

813128

261842

20467

282781

436988

08137373

Prim

arysteel

(LU)

94753kg

1224

9655207

162646

549268

15018

799286

147438

1200

8089

892Prim

arysteel

(NL)

3026kg

39108

166432

20605

8564

6009158

13994

0258

462Prim

aryAl(E

U)

4892kg

205318

629434

134167

3363

1029

68174

24984

01066

469Prim

aryCu(B

E)

2111kg

14436

48698

10460

38402

4037895

8935

0129

230Prim

aryCu(C

N)

584kg

13552

34539

7251

12830

22913

17613

9970

95575

Prim

aryblister-cop

per

(CN)

242kg

1426

4813

8674315

45897

1018

013

382Prim

aryAu(G

LO)

9.93E-02

kg

2030

24957

2625

3028

3315

6359

039

345Prim

aryAg(E

U)

1kg

1771329

12312

7167

2370

2052

Prim

aryPd(E

U)

5.21E-02

kg

5456886

2051

923

1345

4840

11342

Prim

aryPb(B

E)

1kg

01

00

00

00

2Prim

aryNi(B

E)

20kg

8962171

698645

92342

3110

5155

Prim

aryZnO

(BE)

307kg

411500

2122049

78434

1860

4498

Prim

aryZnO

(CN)

352kg

641874

972350

89531

2400

5245

Prim

aryplastics

(EU)

11992kg

4989

992104

43094

45103

68997

2700

1109

603Electricity

(BE)

13174kW

h1623

57320

76384

815

7209

1815

0144

374Electricity

(SE)

4618kW

h9095

4376

22975

38

1479

2081

040

016Heat

(CH)

47592M

J64

725238

18

8117

7210

18840

Gravel

(BE)

4514kg

11379

2532

424339

680

1477

Portlan

dcem

ent(B

E)

7011kg

1160

18621

3737

111492

1024

8540

26898

Portlan

dcem

ent(C

N)

3287kg

6079285

1226

5700

600497

012

919Hard

coalincin

eration(B

E)

2949M

J10

2967

1080

129

1890

3304

E-w

astelan

dfillin

g(B

E)

129702kg

87444

5589492

372065

3027

11730

071

784

Total

Lan

dfill

1520992

7260129

983213

340833

26238

474367

544090

011149863

Avoided

burden

220325

2238629

170085

78991

5772

191587

107102

03012491


Figure 5.10: Results of the CEENE analysis for the post-Galloo treatments. The ‘sumrest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the right pane.

These results show that the production of secondary steel has by far the largest im-pact, which has two main causes. The secondary steel production is first of all quiteenergy intensive, both the process itself, as well as the production of ferronickel andferrochromium, which are intermediates used in stainless steel manufacturing. Com-pared to copper and aluminium, the specific impact of secondary steel production isfound to be higher by a factor of around 2.5 and 3.5, respectively. The high energydemand of the secondary steel industry is reflected in the dominating contributionof fossil fuel, abiotic renewable resources and nuclear energy consumption. Secondof all, more than half of the 100 tonnes of waste treated by Galloo is ferrous materialsent to secondary steel production. This vast amount of material, combined with alarger than average recycling impact, causes the dominating effect of the secondarysteel production in the CEENE results.

The other impacts are mainly caused by secondary aluminium and copper produc-tion, and the manufacturing of cement from blast furnace slag from a copper smelter.All of these are dominated as well by fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent by nuclearenergy and abiotic renewable resources consumption. The two secondary metal pro-cesses, with metal smelting as the main step(s), give rise to a high energy consump-tion. This causes this fossil fuels consumption, both directly through the burning offossil fuels, and indirectly through electricity use. The manufacturing of secondarycement on the other hand utilizes clinker, which is a material produced throughpyroprocessing, and thus has extensive energy needs as well.

For the landfill scenario, with virgin production of all materials and services providedby the recycling chain, a graphical summary is shown in Figure 5.11, where thesteel production is again presented on the left next to the sum of all other impacts,indicated separately on the right.

The results show that the landfilling of the waste stream itself does not have ahigh burden from a resource perspective, compared to the primary production of thematerials provided by the recycling operations. This is in contrast with the results ofthe Swiss case study done by Wäger et al. (2011) (see Section 2.4.1), where the focus


Figure 5.11: Results of the CEENE analysis for the landfill scenario. The ‘sum rest’ barin the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the right pane.

was on emissions and their effects on human health and ecosystem quality as well,and the system boundaries were larger, including collection and high-grade preciousmetals containing components.

For this primary production, the steel manufacturing is again dominant comparedto the other processes, with the same grounds as before, that is predominantly thehuge amount of steel produced. The impacts of the primary steel production areonce more caused for the majority by ferrochromium and ferronickel, as well as bythe primary pig iron. The sum of the other contributions are not so small though,being larger with a factor of more than ten compared to the recycling scenario, andespecially the primary plastics and aluminium production are notable.

For the plastics, the high impact is determined by the high fossil fuels consumption,as they are produced with the latter as feedstock, and require a lot of energy forproduction as well. The aluminium production shows domination of fossil fuels,abiotic renewable resources and nuclear energy consumptions, which is mainly causedby the high electricity requirements of the Hall-Héroult process, which transformsaluminium oxide to metallic aluminium (Classen et al., 2009).

Fossil fuels and metal ore consumption are the most important for the primary pro-duction of copper, the former because of the energy needed in the smelting processes,and the latter because of the extraction of the ore.

Finally, the electricity mixes of both Belgium and Sweden rely for 50% or more onnuclear energy, followed in Belgium by fossil fuels and in Sweden by hydropower,which is reflected in the results.

The comparison between the two end-of-life scenarios for electronic waste is presentedgraphically in Figure 5.12. The ‘Avoided burden’-bar on the bottom, which is thedifference between the two scenarios, shows that for all impact categories, the landfillscenario has a higher resource consumption than the recycling scenario (see also thebottom row of Table 5.6). The fossil fuel consumption is especially responsible for the


Figure 5.12: Comparison of the CEENE results between the e-waste recycling and thelandfill scenario. The avoided burden is the difference between the landfilland recycling scenario.

difference between the two scenarios. It can thus be concluded that from a resourceconsumption perspective, the recycling of electronic waste is environmentally moresound than the deposition in a landfill (27% lower CEENE impact).

A comparison between the primary and secondary production of steel, aluminiumand copper is presented in Figure 5.13. This shows that for copper and aluminium,there is a large difference between the production from recycled materials and virginproduction. For the steel, this difference is less distinct. The high amount of steel,compared with the other output products, thus causes the fact that the percentagedifference between the scenarios might not seem that large. If, for example, thesecondary and primary steel production were not to be taken into account, and onlya certain amount of iron ore were assumed to be replaced, then the burdens of bothscenarios would decrease substantially, while the avoided burden would only dropslightly.

Figure 5.13: Comparison of the CEENE required for the primary or secondary productionof one kilogram of steel, copper and aluminium.


The absolute value of the avoided burden is consequently quite large. To be able toassess the size of these numbers, a conversion can be made to a unit which is moreeasy to grasp. The avoided burden of 3 012 491MJex thus corresponds to 502 barrelsof crude oil, with 48MJex/kg oil and 8 barrels per tonne oil (Boundy et al., 2011;UNEP, 2014; USEPA, 2011).

The impacts of the two Galloo plants itself, compared with the achieved avoidedburdens, are displayed in Figure 5.14. This shows that the impacts of the mechanicalseparation, together with the plastics recycling, are very small compared to the gainsrealized by the electronic waste recycling chain.

Figure 5.14: Comparison of the CEENE results between the impacts of the Galloo mechan-ical separation plant together with Galloo Plastics, and the avoided burdensachieved by the recycling chain.

The fractions rich in precious metals materials are not included, as these are removedin the Depollution step, which lies outside the system boundaries. The primary pro-duction of precious metals generally has a very high impact, but only a very smallamount in low-grade PCBs, coming from the Flotation, are taken into consideration,which explains the low impact of the primary precious metals industry in this anal-ysis. If the streams with high-grade PCBs were to be taken into account as well,the burden of the landfill scenario is expected to increase significantly, enlarging theavoided burden of the recycling scenario.

5.2.2.2 Carbon Footprint

The results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the post-Galloo treatments areindicated in Figure 5.15, while these for the landfill scenario are displayed in Figure5.16. These figures are presented in the same way as before, that is with the impactfor steel production on the left together with the sum of all the other impacts, whichare indicated separately on the right.

For the further recycling steps, the results are again more or less in line with theCEENE results, with a vastly dominant secondary steel production, but compared


Figure 5.15: Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the post-Galloo treatments. The‘sum rest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the right pane.

Figure 5.16: Results of the Carbon Footprint analysis for the landfill scenario. The ‘sumrest’ bar in the left pane is the sum of all treatments on the right pane.

to the CEENE results, the high impact of the plastics incineration is notable, whichis the result of the incineration of organics releasing CO2.

The same applies for the landfill scenario, but here, the landfill operation itself hasa much higher contribution. This is the result of emissions of greenhouse gases fromthe landfill, such as CO2, but also methane and nitrous oxide, caused by the digestionof organic material.

The comparison between the Carbon Footprint of the two scenarios is presentedin Figure 5.17. This indicates that the recycling of electronic waste is beneficialcompared to the landfill scenario from a climate change perspective (34% lowerCarbon Footprint). The avoided burden amounts to 209 784 kg CO2-equivalents,which can be expressed in 1 440 822 km driven in a car, with an average emissionof 132.4 g CO2 per kilometer (European Federation for Transport and Environment,2013).

All the results mentioned in this chapter are subject to some limitations. No chemicalanalysis of the output streams was performed due to time constraints and the large


Figure 5.17: Comparison of the Carbon Footprint results between the e-waste recyclingand the landfill scenario. The avoided burden is the difference between thelandfill and recycling scenario.

number of fractions. Therefore, cross contamination between streams or small lossesin e.g. dust fractions are not taken into account, although these losses are expectedto be small (Vanheule, 2013; Waignein, 2013). It has to be noted as well that somesums may not be balanced due to rounding.

Chapter 6

Conclusions

The material flow analysis of the Galloo mechanical separation plant shows that91% of ferrous material, 100% of aluminium, 100% of other non-ferrous metals(mainly copper), and 44% of organics are sent to material recycling, which amountsto 73% of the total incoming waste flow. Moreover, this is predominantly performedin Belgium (7%) and the rest of Europe (91%), which ensures that these materialsstay available for the European economy.

For ferrous material, the remaining 9% is downcycled, while the other organics aresent to energy recover, both as high (7%) and low (32%) quality fuel, as well asdowncycling (9%) and landfill (8%). Finally, minerals are downcycled (42%) andlandfilled (58%). For the total incoming waste stream, this results in 2% and 10%

energy recovery as a high and low quality fuel respectively, 10% downcycling and5% landfill disposal.

For the ELCA, the CEENE results for the Galloo mechanical separation plant in-dicate that the Shredder has the highest impact of the main modules, followed bythe Flotation, LTRB, post treatments and Plastics Line. The Shredder treats byfar the most material though, and the Flotation has the highest impact per treatedmass. The impacts are mainly caused by the electricity consumption. For the LTRBand especially the Flotation though, there is a large contribution for the impact ofthe density medium. The plant infrastructure has a high impact as well, compara-ble with the one of the Shredder, while the WWTP, internal transport and wastedisposal processes contribute minimally.

All of the impacts are composed for the largest part out of nuclear energy andfossil fuels consumption, caused by the electricity use. The Flotation has highercontributions for abiotic renewable resources and land and biotic resources, stemmingfrom the ferrosilicon density medium use. The plant infrastructure has a high landand biotic resources consumption, as it takes up quite a large surface area.

The Galloo Plastics plant has a comparable impact as the total of the mechanical

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separation plant, although it treats much less material, because of the high energyrequirements of the melting of the plastics, resulting in high contribution for fossilfuels and nuclear energy consumption.

In the total recycling chain, the impacts are caused for over 96% by treatmentoperations performed after Galloo. The impact of the latter is dominated by thesecondary steel production (almost 97%), as this has quite a large specific impact,resulting from the use of ferronickel, ferrochromium and energy, and processes morethan half of the output of Galloo. The secondary steel impact is composed for thelargest part out of fossil fuels consumption, together with mainly abiotic renewableresources and nuclear energy. The production of secondary aluminium, copper andcement accounts for almost all of the rest of the impacts, all of them being dominatedby fossil fuels consumption.

The same pattern is seen for the landfill scenario, where the landfilling itself does nothave a significant resource impact. Here, primary steel is again dominant (almost75% of the total impact), for the same reasons as for the secondary production.However, primary plastics and aluminium have a high impact as well, comparedwith the secondary production of these materials. The impact of the primary plasticsproduction is almost completely composed of fossil fuels consumption, as these areproduced with these resources as a feedstock, and require quite some additionalenergy. The primary aluminium production process is energy intensive as well, whichis reflected in the high contributions of fossil fuels, abiotic renewable resources andnuclear energy.

When the two scenarios are compared, the recycling turns out to be more sustainablefrom a resource perspective (27% lower CEENE impact). This avoided burden ispredominantly accomplished by a lesser fossil fuels consumption.

The Carbon Footprint results show the same pattern as the CEENE results for theGalloo plants, as much of the CEENE impacts were caused by fossil fuels consump-tion. The same applies for the results of the post-Galloo treatments, although theincineration of plastics has a much higher contribution compared with its contribu-tion in the CEENE, as this activity emits a lot of CO2. The Carbon Footprint ofthe landfill scenario shows the same pattern as the CEENE results as well. However,here the impact of the landfilling of the waste stream itself is elevated, because ofthe digesting of the organic compounds in e-waste releasing greenhouse gases.

Overall, the recycling scenario is again more environmentally sound compared withthe landfill scenario, this time from a climate change perspective (34% lower CarbonFootprint).

Chapter 7

Recommendations for FurtherResearch

Further research can focus on enlarging the system boundaries of this study. Firstof all, the collection phase was not taken into account. In the case of Recupel, thisis mainly transport from the different collection points to sorting, and further on tothe recycling companies, as well as the sorting operation itself. Then, the transportstep can be added to the primary production chain again, and the effect of these twoadditions to the treatment chains on the overall results can be studied.

Second of all, the depollution was not included as well. Here, the hazardous andvaluable materials are taken out. These valuable materials include precious and spe-cial metals, which have a much higher environmental burden for primary productionthan for recycling, as is concluded by the study of Bigum et al. (2012) (see Section2.4.2). It should thus be investigated what the effect is of this recovery on the overallbenefits of the recycling chain.

As no chemical analyses were performed on the different output streams, the amountof cross contamination of materials and losses in waste fractions could not be deter-mined. This could be performed to refine the results of the MFA, and subsequentlyof the sustainability assessment.

The burdens of the Galloo process are for the biggest part caused by electricityconsumption. It should be investigated what the influence of a different source forthis electricity, a digester or windmills for example, would implicate for the results.It could also be explored if other media, with a lower impact, can be used to achievethe required density.

In this work, only the processes at Galloo were investigated in detail, and the end-processing steps occurring after this company were modeled using the Ecoinventdatabase. As mentioned in Chapter 5 though, the environmental impacts of therecycling chain were mainly caused by the end-processing operations. These further

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recycling steps should thus also be examined in more detail, especially those whichhave been found by this work to have a high impact, to increase the certainty of theresults.

As mentioned in the Literature Study, sustainability of a process is more than justthe environmentally sound operation thereof. Social and economical effects shouldalso be considered. An example of this is that, when the collection and furtherrecycling of electronic waste in developed countries is improved, less illegal exportto developing countries arises, which makes sure that less e-waste is treated by theinformal recycling industry there. This takes away income for people performingthis informal recycling, but on the other hand protects their health and that of theirenvironment.

The material flow analysis could also be examined in terms of value recovered, bytaking the economic value of the various materials into account. This would makethe precious metals much more important than in this study, as their mass is almostnegligible.

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Udo de Haes, H. A., Heijungs, R., Suh, S., and Huppes, G. Three strategies toovercome the limitations of life-cycle assessment. Journal of industrial ecology, 8(3):19–32, 2004.

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Appendix A

Recupel Collection Results

Figure A.1: Recupel collection results expressed in tonnes for the different electronic wastecategories from 2001 until 2012. The numbers of 2001 were based on the lastsix months of that year (Recupel, 2012).

77

Appendix B

Galloo Unit Process Schemes

Gal

loo

Gal

loo

Shre

dd

er

Ham

mer

Mill

Zig

Zag

Air

Se

par

ato

rO

verb

and

Mag

net

Big

Mag

net

Shre

dd

ed m

ater

ial

Hea

vy

Ligh

tEd

dy

Cu

rren

t

Ove

rban

d M

agn

et

No

n-f

erro

us

No

n-f

erro

us

1. S

LF

2. S

NF

Cu

Han

dp

icki

ng

3. F

e p

ure

6. A

l fra

ctio

n p

ure

4.

Fe p

ure

fro

m o

verb

and

(lig

ht)

5. F

e n

ot

pu

re f

rom

ove

rban

d (

hea

vy)

7. M

oto

rs/t

ran

sfo

rmer

s n

ot

pu

re

12

. Lo

sses

Ded

ust

ing

9. D

ust

ELD

AN

shre

dd

erb

. Fe

pu

re

a. M

oto

rs/t

ran

sfo

rmer

sn

ot

pu

re

c. C

u &

Cu

allo

ysn

ot

pu

re

Dep

ollu

tio

n S

yste

mO

VE

rest

LTR

B S

yste

m

Mag

net

Ferr

ou

s

Res

hre

d

Was

te

Ham

mer

Bla

de

Elec

tric

ity

Wat

er

Air

10

. Slu

dge

11

. Was

te w

ater

Air

Was

te h

amm

er b

lad

es

De

stin

atio

n L

ege

nd

RU

(re

-use

),

MR

(m

ater

ial r

ecyc

ling)

ER (

ener

gy r

eco

very

),D

C (

do

wn

cyc

ling)

TD (

ther

mal

dis

po

sal)

,LD

(la

nd

fill

dis

po

sal)

Bel

giu

m

Euro

pe

Wo

rld

Ho

ffm

ann

Ho

ffm

ann

Envi

ron

men

tEn

viro

nm

ent

Lum

inu

sLu

min

us

WW

TPW

WTP

Ho

ffm

ann

(M

R)

Ho

ffm

ann

(M

R)

Envi

ron

men

t

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Met

allo

Ch

imiq

ue

(MR

/DC

)

Met

allo

Ch

imiq

ue

(MR

/DC

)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Met

allo

Ch

imiq

ue

(MR

/DC

)

Met

allo

Ch

imiq

ue

(MR

/DC

)

OV

MB

(LD

)

OV

MB

(LD

)

OV

MB

(LD

)

WW

TPW

WTP

8. R

esh

red

left

ove

rs

LTR

B S

yste

m

Flo

tati

on

Sys

tem

4. O

vers

ize

1. >

12

0m

m7

. Al +

Fe

e. O

vers

ize

Figure B.1: Overview of the unit processes in the Shredder module (Zerdirator).

79

80 Chapter B: Galloo Unit Process Schemes

LTR

B

Wat

er a

nd

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ry

Gal

loo

Gal

loo

Shre

dd

er S

yste

mD

rum

Sie

ve1

. SLF

+SN

FFl

ipfl

op

scr

een

0-3

5m

mZi

g Za

g A

ir

Sep

arat

or

4-3

5m

m

Zig

Zag

Air

Se

par

ato

r3

5-1

20

mm

Was

h D

rum

Hea

vyD

ensi

ty S

epar

ato

r1

,22

kg/

l

Ove

rban

d M

agn

et

4. O

vers

ize

Hea

vy

1. P

last

ics/

rub

ber

s n

ot

pu

re

Ligh

t

3. F

e n

ot

pu

re

Pla

stic

s Li

ne

Syst

em

2. N

on

-fer

rou

s si

nks

Flo

tati

on

Sys

tem

Ligh

t

5. 0

-4m

m: p

last

ics/

oth

er o

rgan

ic f

ines

no

t p

ure

6. R

esid

ues

: lig

ht

frac

tio

n f

rom

zig

zag

sep

arat

or

and

du

st

9. L

oss

es

Eld

an S

hre

dd

er

Vib

roso

rt

Was

h D

rum

+

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ry

Was

h D

rum

+

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ry

Sin

ks

Flo

ats

Ded

ust

ing

Syst

em

Was

hin

g w

ater

Scre

en in

Was

hin

g In

stal

lati

on

Hyd

rocy

clo

ne

in

Was

hin

g In

stal

lati

on

Hyd

rocy

clo

ne

in

Pre

ss In

stal

lati

on

Bel

t P

ress

Scre

en in

Wet

Sep

arat

ion

Co

arse

mat

eria

lSa

nd

San

d

Slu

dge

Tiss

ues

/wir

es

Was

hin

g w

ater

7. W

aste

s fr

om

wat

er a

nd

med

ium

rec

ove

ry

Air

8. W

aste

wat

er

Rec

ove

red

med

ium

Met

allo

Ch

imiq

ue

(MR

/DC

)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

b. F

e p

ure

a. M

oto

rs/t

ran

sfo

rmer

s n

ot

pu

re

Imo

g (D

C)

Au

rub

is (

MR

/DC

)

a. S

and

b. M

ix o

f m

etal

s

Van

hee

de

(LD

)

De

stin

atio

n L

ege

nd

RU

(re

-use

),

MR

(m

ater

ial r

ecyc

ling)

ER (

ener

gy r

eco

very

),D

C (

do

wn

cyc

ling)

TD (

ther

mal

dis

po

sal)

,LD

(la

nd

fill

dis

po

sal)

Bel

giu

m

Euro

pe

Wo

rld

Envi

ron

men

t

Van

hee

de

(LD

)

WW

TPW

WTP

OV

MB

(LD

)

Lum

inu

sLu

min

us

Elec

tric

ity

WW

TPW

WTP

Wat

er

Envi

ron

men

tEn

viro

nm

ent

Air

Co

ferm

inC

ofe

rmin

Mag

net

ite

SNF

Wat

erSN

F W

ater

SNF

Wat

erSN

F W

ater

Po

lym

er

Kat

ion

Flo

tati

on

Sys

tem

2. 0

-12

mm

Shre

dd

er S

yste

m

Figure B.2: Overview of the unit processes in the LTRB module.

81

Gal

loo

Gal

loo

Flo

tati

on D

rum

Sie

ve1

2

1. >

12

0m

m

2. 0

-12

mm

B1

Den

sity

Se

par

atio

n 2

,1-

2,2

kg/

l

12

-12

0m

m

Was

hin

g an

d

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ryFl

oat

sD

rum

Sie

ve

Was

h D

rum

15

. Was

te s

and

Edd

y C

urr

ent

12

-30

mm

3. L

igh

t M

etal

s 1

2-3

0m

m

13

. Hea

vy p

last

ics/

rub

ber

s 1

2-3

0m

m

Edd

y C

urr

ent

30

-12

0m

m

4. L

igh

t M

etal

s 3

0-1

20

mm

14

. Hea

vy p

last

ics/

rub

ber

s 3

0-1

20

mm

Was

hin

g an

d

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ry

Sin

ks

B2

Den

sity

Se

par

atio

n 3

,0-

3,1

kg/

l

Was

hin

g an

d

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ryFl

oat

sD

ryer

Dru

m S

ieve

Edd

y C

urr

ent

12

-40

mm

Edd

y C

urr

ent

40

-12

0m

m8

. Dro

ps

Hea

d R

olle

r M

agn

et

Hea

d R

olle

r M

agn

et

7. A

l+Fe

5. A

l 12

-40

6. A

l 40

-12

0

Was

hin

g an

d

Med

ium

Rec

ove

ry

Sin

ks

Ove

rban

d M

agn

et

Hea

d R

olle

r M

agn

et

No

n-f

erro

us

9. F

e 1

2-1

20

fro

m o

verb

and

10

. Fe

12

-12

0 f

rom

hea

d r

olle

r

Dru

m S

ieve

No

n-f

erro

us

11

. Hea

vy M

etal

s 1

2-5

0m

m

12

. Hea

vy M

etal

s 5

0-1

20

mm

LTR

B S

yste

m1

. No

n-f

erro

us

sin

ks

Ro

tosi

eve

Ro

tosi

eve

16

. Tis

sue

Siev

e D

rum

d. 3

0-5

0m

m

Co

mb

isen

se

Co

mb

isen

se

Han

dp

icki

ng

b. R

emai

nin

gs

Vib

roso

rt

FeSi

Gas

olin

e/ga

s

Wat

er

Op

tica

l So

rtin

ga. A

l pu

re 1

2-4

0

Op

tica

l So

rtin

g

b. P

CB

Shre

dd

er S

yste

m

LTR

B S

yste

m

Shre

dd

er S

yste

m

20

. Lo

sses

Lum

inu

sLu

min

us

Elec

tric

ity

Haf

sil

Haf

sil

Rec

ycle

d g

aso

line

/gas

gri

d

Rec

ycle

d g

aso

line

/gas

gri

d

WW

TPW

WTP

OV

MB

(LD

)

Raf

fmet

al (

MR

)R

affm

etal

(M

R)

a. A

l pu

re 1

2-3

0

b. W

aste

s

Van

hee

de

(LD

)

Eld

an s

hre

dd

er +

Ed

dy

curr

ent

De

stin

atio

n L

ege

nd

RU

(re

-use

),

MR

(m

ater

ial r

ecyc

ling)

ER (

ener

gy r

eco

very

),D

C (

do

wn

cyc

ling)

TD (

ther

mal

dis

po

sal)

,LD

(la

nd

fill

dis

po

sal)

Bel

giu

m

Euro

pe

Wo

rld

Ind

aver

(TD

)

OV

MB

(LD

)

Raf

fmet

al (

MR

)R

affm

etal

(M

R)

a. A

l pu

re 3

0-1

20

b. W

aste

sEl

dan

sh

red

der

+

Edd

y cu

rren

t

Ind

aver

(TD

)

Van

hee

de

(LD

)

Ale

ris

(MR

)A

leri

s (M

R)

Um

ico

re(M

R/D

C)

Ch

ina

(MR

/LD

)

Imo

g (D

C)

b. S

and

a. C

able

s

Raf

fmet

al (

MR

)R

affm

etal

(M

R)

a. A

l pu

re 4

0-1

20

b. P

CB

Um

ico

re(M

R/D

C)

Au

rub

is (

MR

)A

uru

bis

(M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

a. C

u &

Cu

allo

ys p

ure

b. F

e p

ure

Zerd

irat

or

Shre

dd

er

Au

rub

is (

MR

)A

uru

bis

(M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

Arc

elo

r (M

R)

a. C

u &

Cu

allo

ys p

ure

b. F

e p

ure

Zerd

irat

or

Shre

dd

er

Ch

ina

(MR

/DC

)c.

12

-30

mm

Jew

o (

MR

)Je

wo

(M

R)

Ch

ina

(MR

)

a. S

tain

less

stee

l

b. R

emai

nin

g m

etal

s

Au

rub

is (

MR

/DC

)

Au

rub

is (

MR

/DC

)

a. 0

-4m

m

b. 4

-12

mm

Shre

dd

er S

yste

me.

ove

rsiz

e

Jew

o (

MR

)Je

wo

(M

R)

a. S

tain

less

stee

l

Au

rub

is (

MR

)A

uru

bis

(M

R)

a. R

emai

nin

gM

etal

s

Imo

g (D

C)

b. S

ton

es

WW

TPW

WTP

Was

te w

ater

OV

MB

(LD

)

Figure B.3: Overview of the unit processes in the Flotation module.

82 Chapter B: Galloo Unit Process Schemes

Plastics Line

Density Separation 1,10 kg/l

MTB Shredder25 mm

Floats 1. Good Plastics

2. Bad Plastics

GallooGalloo

LTRB System

4. Losses

LuminusLuminus Electricity

WWTPWWTP Water

OmyaOmya CaCO3

Söderenergi (ER)

WWTPWWTP3. Waste water

Destination LegendRU (re-use), MR (material recycling)

ER (energy recovery),DC (down cycling)


Belgium

Europe

World

OVMB (LD)


Figure B.4: Overview of the unit processes in the Plastics Line module.

Appendix C

Water Contents

Table C.1: Water contents for the output streams from the Shredder. The numbers andnames of the streams refer to those on the schemes.

Number Stream name Water content (%)

1. SLF 02. SNF 03. Fe pure 03.a Motors/transformers not pure 03.b Fe pure 03.c Cu & Cu alloys not pure 04. Fe pure from overhand (light) 05. Fe not pure from overhand (heavy) 06. Al pure 07. Motors/transformers not pure from Cu handpicking 08. Reshred leftovers 09. Dust 010. Sludge 50

83

84 Chapter C: Water Contents

Table C.2: Water contents for the output streams from the LTRB. The numbers and namesof the streams refer to those on the schemes.


1. Plastics/rubbers not pure 17.502. Non-ferrous sinks 2.753. Fe not pure from overhand 13.a Motors/transformers not pure 13.b Fe pure 14. Oversize 05. 0− 4mm 105.a Sand 105.b Mix of metals 106. Residues: light fractions zig zag 07. Wastes from water and medium recovery 66.2

85

Table C.3: Water contents for the output streams from the Flotation. The numbers andnames of the streams refer to those on the schemes.


1. > 120mm 02. 0− 12mm 03. Light metals 12− 30 33.a Al pure 12− 30 03.b Wastes 64. Light metals 30− 120 34.a Al pure 30− 120 04.b Wastes 65. Al 12− 40 (with PCBs) 05.a Al pure 12− 40 05.b PCB 05. Al 40− 120 (with PCBs) 05.a Al pure 40− 120 05.b PCB 07. Al + Fe 08. Drops from eddy currents 08.a Cables 08.b Sand 09. Fe 20− 120 from overband 29.a Fe pure 29.b Cu & Cu alloys pure 210. Fe 20− 120 from head roller 210.a Fe pure 210.b Cu & Cu alloys pure 211. Heavy metals 12− 50 211.a 0− 4mm 2.1711.b 4− 12mm 2.1711.c 12− 30mm 2.1711.d 30− 50mm 2.1711.da Stainless steel 2.1711.db Remaining metals 2.1711.e Oversize 012. Heavy metals 50− 120 212.a Stainless steel 212.b Remainings 212.ba Remaining metals 2

Continued on next page

86 Chapter C: Water Contents

Table C.3: continued from previous page


12.bb Stones 213 Heavy plastics/rubbers 12− 30 1014 Heavy plastics/rubbers 30− 120 1015 Waste sand 8016 Tissue from rotosieve 80

Table C.4: Water contents for the output streams from the Plastics Line. The numbersand names of the streams refer to those on the schemes.


1. Floats: good plastics 17.502. Sinks: bad plastics 17.50

Appendix D

Partial Mass Balances perMaterial Category

87

88 Chapter D: Partial Mass Balances per Material Category

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line

2. Non-ferrous sinks: 7 946kg 1. Plastics/rubbers not pure: 0kg

WWTP Water: 0kg


6. Al pure: 0kg






OVMB (LD)9. Dust: 0kg


1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 83 999kg


Vanheede (LD)6. Residues: light fractions zig zag: 0kg




medium recovery: 0kg

WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 0kg


1. Floats: good plastics: 0kg

Söderenergi (ER)2. Sinks: bad plastics: 0kgWWTP

Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 0kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 70kg

FeSi: 0kg

1. >120mm: 8kg

2. 0-12mm: 0kg




Optical sorting5. Al 12-40 (with PCBs): 0kg

6. Al 40-120 (with PCBs): 0kg

Vibrosort8. Drops from eddy currents: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder





Indaver (TD)13. Heavy plastics/rubbers 12-30: 0kg





OVE rest: 100 000kg

Ferrous

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE

4. Oversize: 75kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 290kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 82 869kg



Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 12-40: 0kg

b. PCB: 0kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 0kg

China (MR/LD)


a. Cables: 0kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 125kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 0kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 331kg


steel: 2 305kg


2 934kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 506kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)



Handpicking Aurubis (MR)a. RemainingMetals: 0kg

b. Remainings: 0kg


Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 498kg


452kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 0kg

2.SNF12 241kg


Figure D.1: Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant for ferrousmaterial.

89

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line


WWTP Water: 0kg


6. Al pure: 8 780kg




7. Motors/transformers not pure from Cu handpicking: 0kg




1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 0kg







WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 0kg




Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 0kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 6 272kg

FeSi: 0kg

1. >120mm: 358kg

2. 0-12mm: 3 220kg


3. Light metals 12-30: 1 575kg

4. Light metals 30-120: 1 323kg

Optical sorting5. Al 12-40 (with PCBs): 38 318kg

6. Al 40-120 (with PCBs): 46 372kg

Vibrosort8. Drops from eddy currents: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder



Sieve drum11. Heavy metals 12-50: 0kg

Combisense12. Heavy metals 50-120: 0kg






OVE rest: 100 000kgAluminium

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE

EnvironmentAir

EnvironmentAir

4. Oversize: 1 668kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 12-40: 38 318kg

b. PCB: 0kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)

a. Al pure 40-120: 46 372kg

b. PCB: 0kg

China (MR/LD)


a. Cables: 0kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 0kg


OVMB (LD)

Raffmetal (MR)a. Al pure 12-30: 1 575kg

b. Wastes: 0kg


OVMB (LD)

Raffmetal (MR)a. Al pure 30-120: 1 323kg

b. Wastes: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Jewo (MR)a. Stainlesssteel: 0kg


0kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 0kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)




b. Remainings: 0kg


Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 0kg


0kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 0kg

2.SNF99 518kg


Figure D.2: Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant for aluminium.


BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line


WWTP Water: 0kg


6. Al pure: 0kg








1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 4 877kg



3. Fe not pure from overband: 1 386kg




WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 0kg




Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 0kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 24kg

FeSi: 0kg

1. >120mm: 2 930kg

2. 0-12mm: 21 063kg







Zerdirator Shredder










OVE rest: 100 000kg

Other non-ferrous metals

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE


Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)

a. Motors/transformers not pure: 1 386kg

b. Fe pure: 0kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

a. Motors/transformers not pure: 3 584kg

c. Cu & Cu alloys not pure: 1 292kg

Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 65kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 79kg

China (MR/LD)


a. Cables: 5 815kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 0kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



21 158kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 12 647kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)


b. Remaining metals: 12 647kg


Metals: 20 690kg

b. Remainings: 20 690kg


Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 3 593kg

b. 4-12mm: 5 190kge. oversize:

3 261kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 0kg

2.SNF90 010kg


Figure D.3: Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant for other non-ferrous metals.

91

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line

2. Non-ferrous sinks: 39 216kg 1. Plastics/rubbers not pure: 51 146kg

WWTP Water: 0kg


6. Al pure: 364kg








1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 462kg


Vanheede (LD)6. Residues: light fractions zig zag: 3 933kg





WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 0kg


1. Floats: good plastics: 43 883kg

Söderenergi (ER)2. Sinks: bad plastics: 7 263kgWWTP

Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 0kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 3kg

FeSi: 0kg

1. >120mm: 1 011kg

2. 0-12mm: 2 565kg







Zerdirator Shredder




Combisense12. Heavy metals 50-120: 0kg






OVE rest: 100 000kgOrganics

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE


Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 9kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 11kg

China (MR/LD)


a. Cables: 3 187kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 8 822kg

b. Mix of metals: 0kg

OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 246kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 207kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



0kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 0kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)




b. Remainings: 0kg


Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 0kg


0kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 0kg

2.SNF101 282kg


Figure D.4: Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant for organics.


BACKGROUND SYSTEM

BACKGROUND SYSTEM

FOREGROUND SYSTEM

GallooGalloo


LTRB

Flotation

Plastics Line


WWTP Water: 0kg


6. Al pure: 0kg





OVMB (LD)10. Sludge: 9 339kg

OVMB (LD)9. Dust: 43 936kg


1.SLF

3. Fe pure: 0kg




WWTP8. Waste water: 14 115kg

Vanheede (LD)7. Wastes from water and medium recovery: 3 990kg

WWTP

Cofermin

Water: 0kg

Magnetite: 14 115kg




Omya

Water: 0kg

CaCO3: 8 953kg WWTP

WWTP Water: 0kg

Hafsil

7. Al+Fe: 36kg

FeSi: 3 031kg

1. >120mm: 0kg

2. 0-12mm: 32 346kg





6. Al 40-120 (with PCBs): 117kg


Zerdirator Shredder







Vanheede (LD)15. Waste sand: 1 152kg


WWTP17. Waste water: 3 031kg

OVE rest: 100 000kgMinerals

Depollution



ICTWood with metals

OVE

4. Oversize: 0kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Eldan shredder


Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



Aleris (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 97kg

Optical sorting

Raffmetal (MR)

Umicore(MR/DC)


b. PCB: 117kg

China (MR/LD)

Imog (DC)b. Sand: 18 266kg

a. Cables: 0kg

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg

Imog (DC)

Aurubis (MR)

a. Sand: 21 071kg

b. Mix of metals: 0kg

OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg


OVMB (LD)


b. Wastes: 0kg

Zerdirator Shredder

Aurubis (MR)

Arcelor (MR)


b. Fe pure: 0kg



0kg

Combisense

d. 30-50mm: 0kg

Jewo (MR)

China (MR)




b. Remainings: 2 031kg

Imog (DC)b. Stones: 2 031kg

Aurubis (MR/DC)

Aurubis (MR/DC)

a. 0-4mm: 0kg


0kg



Belgium

Europe

World


3. Waste water: 8 953kg

2.SNF46 760kg


Figure D.5: Partial mass balance of the Galloo mechanical separation plant for minerals.

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