Recycling Sustainability Optimization: Case Study of Flat Screen Televisions

The current European Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment evaluates recycling performance based on the amount of recovered materials. Using these mass-based recycling targets has led recyclers to focus on extracting those materials which can be recovered at lowest cost; ignoring differences in both the environmental importance and the economic value of materials. Therefore, this paper proposes a pragmatic evaluation approach based on Life Cycle Assessment data to quantify the environmental benefits and burdens of different End-of-Life treatment scenarios. In the proposed method, the degree of downcycling is estimated by the value retention of the recycled materials. In a case study three scenarios for recycling Liquid Crystal Display TVs are analyzed and compared by means of the presented methodstatus: accepte