Socio-economic assessment and feasibility study on - Öko-Institut eV

<strong>Socio</strong>-<strong>economic</strong> <strong>assessment</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>feasibility</strong> <strong>study</strong>
on sustainable e-waste management in Ghana
August 2010
� Controlled management of hazardous fraction
The question, whether a step 2 recycling unit is feasible in the short or medium-term remains
open. In contrast to step 1, an automated step 2 CFC recovery operation requires significant
investments into machinery (several million US$) <strong>and</strong> generates only very little employment.
On the other side, manual extraction of foams <strong>and</strong> its direct incineration in cement kilns is
associated with many other problems. As a possible middle-way, it might be elaborated to
search for a third option based on the manual extraction of foams, combined with an
automated recovery of CFCs. Nevertheless, there is no machinery readily available for such
an alternative treatment path.
Generally, refrigerator recycling should, in any case, be linked to sound quality assurance
mechanisms. Such mechanisms could be provided by independent organisations such as
RAL Quality Assurance for the Demanufacturing of Refrigeration Equipment or other
technical inspection associations.
4.3.4 Economic incentives for environmentally sound recycling
The intrinsic material value of refrigerators is mainly based on the bulk metals copper, steel
<strong>and</strong> aluminium (see table 12). Depending on the applied treatment technology, between 96%
<strong>and</strong> 99% of the ferrous <strong>and</strong> between 80% <strong>and</strong> 92% of the non-ferrous metals can be
recovered in the recycling processes (Dehoust & Schüler 2007). It is assumed that a partial
deployment of manual dismantling <strong>and</strong> sorting processes will lead to the above average
recovery rates of 99% for ferrous metals <strong>and</strong> 92% for non-ferrous metals.
The value of the various types of plastics is difficult to determine: While the polystyrene of
refrigerators – which on average makes up 45.2% of the total plastic content – is of high
purity <strong>and</strong> may achieve a considerable market price after recovery, the pulverised PUR-foam
(approximately 4 kg per device) can be used as oil binding agent. The other plastic fractions
are of low quality <strong>and</strong> may only be suitable for energy recovery (Dehoust & Schüler 2007).
Generally, there is no globally interlinked market for secondary plastics, so that prices in one
region cannot be easily transferred to another region. Therefore, the material values for
plastics listed in table 12 are indicative figures only. The table indicates that – from a
resource perspective – the best applicable technology is preferable for its better utilisation of
plastics, namely polystyrene <strong>and</strong> PUR. The recovery rates for metals are equal to those of
the presently applied technologies.
Additional incentives for an environmentally sound recycling of refrigerators <strong>and</strong> freezers
result from the high greenhouse gas potentials of the refrigerants <strong>and</strong> foaming agents: A
sound recovery <strong>and</strong> destruction of these gases, as carried out with the best applicable
technologies would generate significant greenhouse gas emission reductions that – under
certain preconditions – can be certified <strong>and</strong> sold under one of the existing emission reduction
certification schemes, namely the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Climate Action
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