Environment Economy Assessment on Recycling of Rare Earths and Mercury from the Waste Fluorescent Lamps

Abstract

Rare earth elements and mercury in waste fluorescent lamps belong to the category of hazardous waste. In China, the scrap of waste fluorescent lamps produced each year is more than 5 billion. The improper disposal not only causes a waste of resources, but also pollutes environment seriously. People do not pay much attention to recycling the waste lamps (only 1% of the lamps have been recycled), and the vast majority of waste lamps are still disposed by the traditional landfill and incineration. However, the study of environmental economic of rare earth elements and mercury recycling has not been carried out yet. In this paper, we have considered the pollution and ecological destruction from the stage of mining and emission, and the risks of pollutants from smelting. The actual governance cost method and the virtual treatment cost method have been used to evaluate the environmental economic of rare earth elements and mercury recycling in the both unidirectional flow mode and the recycling mode. The treatment cost of various stages and total treatment cost is estimated. It has been found that the virtual treatment cost for the unidirectional flow mode is much higher than the actual treatment cost. Moreover, the environment economic for the unidirectional flow mode is much higher than the recycling mode. This provides a novel research idea for the evaluation of environment economic.

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Author Information
Yufeng Wu, Beijing University of Technology, China
Baolei Wang, Beijing University of Technology, China
Yu Gong, Beijing University of Technology, China
Qijun Zhang, Beijing University of Technology, China

• Category: Environmental Sustainability and Human Consumption: Waste

Posted by James Alexander Gordon

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