The environmental performance of fluorescent lamps in ... - Springer Link

Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:807–818 DOI 10.1007/s11367-015-0870-2

LCA OF WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The environmental performance of fluorescent lamps in China, assessed with the LCA method Quanyin Tan & Qingbin Song & Jinhui Li

Received: 14 November 2014 / Accepted: 25 February 2015 / Published online: 17 April 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Abstract Purpose The rapid increase in production and usage of fluorescent lamps (FLs) has brought with it a rising concern about potential mercury risk from both FL production and disposal at the end-of-life (EoL) stage. Thus, there is an urgent need for the environmentally sound management of FLs. In order to provide useful information for the development of effective management tools, this study used the life cycle assessment methodology to investigate the environmental performance of FLs in China. Methods This work compares the environmental performance of two types of FLs, linear (LFLs) and compact (CFLs), using the modular life cycle assessment (LCA) based on the international standards of the ISO 14040 series. The operational data applied to the inventory analysis and combined with the information in the Ecoinvent 3.0 databases was obtained by interviews with a local FL manufacturer and a licensed waste FL treatment facility. Results and discussion Results suggest that the chosen linear FL has a lower environmental impact than the compact one. The use stage accounted for the majority (>94 %) of total environmental impacts, followed by the manufacturing stage. The ballast component was the largest contributor to the environmental impact of CFLs and largely accounted for the difference between CFLs and LFLs in the manufacturing stage. The end-of-life stage can be a benefit to the environment when waste FLs are processed through the proper, li-

Responsible editor: Almudena Hospido Q. Tan : Q. Song : J. Li (*) State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China e-mail: [email protected]

censed disposal enterprises in China. Electricity consumption accounts for more than 94 % of the environmental impact of FLs over their entire life cycle. This can be reduced by 19 % when the electricity used is changed from the Beijing mix to the China mix. Conclusions Results of the life cycle assessment can be used to compare relative environmental impacts of different waste FL treatment technologies and can help policy makers better understand the urgency of the issues calling for their attention. Keywords China . Environmental impacts . Fluorescent lamp . Life cycle assessment

1 Introduction Fluorescent lamps (FLs) are widely used in public, commercial, and residential buildings due to potential energy savings of at least 65 % over incandescent lamps (ILs) and their life span, which can be 10 times as long (U.S. DOE 2013). In recent years, it is estimated that annually more than 3, 000 TWh electricity is consumed by lighting, accounting for approximately 19 % of total global electricity production. The energy consumed by lighting generates about 1,900 million tonnes of CO2 emission per year. This quantity is equivalent to the 70 % of the greenhouse gas emission produced by passenger vehicles in the world (IEA 2006). Specifically, the electricity for lighting accounts for about 10 % of the electricity production in Germany, 12 % in China, 19 % in the USA, and 23 % in Sweden (Bladh and Krantz 2008; Frondel and Lohmann 2011; NDRC et al. 2011; U.S. DOE 2012). Consequently, the replacement of ILs with FLs has accelerated all over the world ever since Australia began phasing out ILs in 2007 (AU. DOI 2009).

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China is presently the largest FL production base in the world, producing 7.024 billion FL units in 2011, over 27 times the production in 1994 (CNIS 2002; Ye et al. 2012). Stimulated by China’s national roadmap for gradually phasing out incandescent lamps (begun on October 1, 2012), an accelerated obsolescence of FLs and increased flow into China’s solid waste stream is to be expected over the next several years. It has been estimated that about 9.40 billion FL units will be produced and 4.13 billion units of waste FLs generated in 2015. And the quantity of mercury emissions from waste FL breakage could exceed 6.48 tonnes (Tan and Li 2014). However, as of the end of September 2014, there were only three hazardous waste processing operations in mainland China licensed to handle mercury-containing lamps. The total capacity of the facilities is 10,100 metric tons, only about 1.6 % of the mass of the waste FLs generated in 2015 (Tan and Li 2014). Consequently, there has been increasing public concern about the potential risk of mercury exposure from FLs and waste FL breakage and disposal. Knowing the key issue of each stage of the FL life cycle will significantly contribute to environmentally sound FL management, which is becoming increasingly urgent in mainland China. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is an internationally standardized, structured method for quantitatively assessing various categories of potential environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of goods and services and is considered one of the most effective management tools (Azapagic 1999; Durlinger et al. 2012; Saner et al. 2012). It has been applied to the management of electrical and electronic equipment and its associated waste (known as e-waste), by assessing the potential environmental impacts of PC products (Choi et al. 2006; Duan et al. 2009; Socolof et al. 2005; Song et al. 2013c), cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors (Song et al. 2012), information and communication technologies such as mobile phone networks (Scharnhorst et al. 2005, 2006), technology for metal recovery from e-waste (Bigum et al. 2012), portable e-waste treatment facilities (Rocchetti et al. 2013; Song et al. 2013a), and e-waste enterprises (Song et al. 2013b). The broad perspective of LCA makes it possible to study various types of electrical and electronic equipment and their components and takes into account their environmental benefits for both specific stages and throughout their life cycles. Several LCA studies carried out on the luminaire sector have compared the life cycle performance of electromagnetic and electronic ballast used for FLs (Bakri et al. 2008; Bakri et al. 2010), as well as various lighting technologies—ILs, halogen lamps, FLs (including linear and compact FLs), and light-emitting diode (LED) lamps (Parsons 2006; Ramroth 2008; Welz et al. 2011; Principi and Fioretti 2014; Sangwan et al. 2014; Tähkämö et al. 2014). These studies demonstrated the extent to which an electronic ballast shows lower environmental impacts than an electromagnetic one, as well as

Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:807–818

showing that the environmental impact of fluorescent lamps is lower than that of ILs and halogen lamps yet higher than LED lamps. However, in previous studies, the material consumption inventories have been obtained mainly by dismantling the FLs and their relevant components. The materials consumed during the production processes, though, are always more than those contained in the final product due to the inevitable loss; moreover, there is accidental breakage or rejected units that do not meet manufacturing standards. Therefore, the potential environmental impacts of FL production have been underestimated to some extent in previous studies. For that reason, practical operation data from the manufacturer was collected and used for the assessment of FL production so that the breakage and rejection ratio can be included in the assessment. The objective of this study was to compile an accurate and detailed assessment of the actual life cycle of FLs and to clarify key issues at each stage. The study also aimed to determine how different mixes of linear and compact FLs, as well as their transportation during the distribution and end-of-life (EoL) stages, affect their environmental impacts.

2 Methodology The environmental impacts of linear fluorescent lamps (LFLs) and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are evaluated using the life cycle assessment method. According to the ISO 14040 (ISO 2006a) and ISO 14044 (ISO 2006b) guidelines, the life cycle assessment comprises four phases—goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation. 2.1 Goal and scope 2.1.1 Objective and system boundary The goal of this LCA was to assess the potential environmental impacts of the whole life cycle—manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal—of FLs in China. The intention was to identify the life stages with the most significant environmental impacts and the treatment processes that contribute the largest amount of environmental impact at the disposal stage. 2.1.2 Functional unit The functional unit defines the base for the assessment of products and especially for comparisons between products. The functional unit determined here is based on the operating time of FLs in the use stage; thus, the CFL is 1.0 lamp units, and the LFL is 1.25 lamp units.


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In this study, the T8 FL was chosen for the representative linear FL, because it accounts for the largest proportion of LFL production. The minimum rated power of T8 LFLs is set to 18 W in the state standard for the energy efficiency values and grades of double-capped fluorescent lamps (GB 19043-2013) (AQSIQ and SAC 2013). The luminous flux of the T8 FL of the grade one is 1,260 lm. The Panasonic T8 LFL-YZ18, which has a rated power of 18 W and luminous flux of 1,200–1,400 lm, was selected as the representative product for assessing the environmental impacts of LFLs, and the Panasonic CFL-EFS20, with the rated power of 20 W and luminous flux of 1,200 lm, was selected for the assessment of CFLs. To ensure comparability of the LFLs and CFLs, the lifetime of EFS20, 10,000 h, was taken as a reference parameter; this was evened out by the number of FLs used for the assessment. Thus, for example, the lifetime of 1.25 YZ18s, which has a rated lifetime of 8,000 h, equals the lifetime of one EFS20. Table 1 Basic data of life cycle inventories used for assessing environmental impacts from LFL and CFL manufacturing (data for 10,000 units FLs) and distribution (unit: kg)

Model of FL Input Electricitya Lamp holder

Lamp tube

The units of measurement for input with superscript letters are marked in the column Bamount^ P piece

Packaging (board box) Distribution

2.2 Inventory analysis Data for the production processes were obtained from a manufacturing enterprise in Beijing, the Panasonic Lighting (Beijing) Co., Ltd. The energy and material consumptions during the production stage were obtained from the actual statistics for 10,000 FL units in the industrial manufacturing processes. The rejection rate during production was also considered in the assessment. The production of both LFLs and CFLs was assessed. Table 1 shows the energy and material consumption for manufacturing 10,000 pieces of FLs collected from the actual operation statistics of an FL manufacturer, including the fuel demand for FL distribution. According to an interview with Panasonic, transportation by truck is the favorite method for FL distribution inside China, and the truck of choice is an Auman 5185CD. The fuel consumption by truck for a specific distance (100 km) was

LFL (model of lamp: YZ18) Breakage and rejection ratio

2%

CFL (EFS20) Breakage and rejection ratio

3%

Aluminum Copper Tungsten wire Resin Phenolic resin Shellac Rosin Calcium carbonate Denatured ethanol Butanol Special silicone Shellac resin

Amount 2,300 kWh 20.4 9.2 0.2 10.6 1.2 0.5 0.3 16.6 1.4 0.3 0.2 0.5

Input Electricitya Copper Resin Tungsten wire Printed wiring board Capacitorb Surface-mounted (SMD) diodeb SMD resistorb Miniature coilb Phenolic resin Shellac Rosin Calcium carbonate Denatured ethanol Butanol Special silicone Shellac resin

Amount 5,000 kWh 9.2 10.4 0.1 153 30,000 P 20,000 P 30,000 P 30,000 P 1.3 0.6 0.3 18 1.5 0.3 0.2 0.5

Glass Aluminum oxide Red phosphorus Blue phosphorus Green phosphorus Mercury Argonc For outer packaging For single product

982.6 0.3 8.3 3 9.4 0.036 15.3 mL 121 100

Glass Aluminum oxide Red phosphorus Blue phosphorus Mercury Argon-neon gas mixturec

1,123 0.04 5.5 2.6 0.021

For outer packaging For single product

140.5 90

Diesel (per 100 km)d Capacity of trucke

25 L 24,000 P

Diesel (per 100 km)d Capacity of trucke

25 L 32,400 P

28 mL

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collected to evaluate how much the distribution distance can affect the life cycle environmental impacts of the FLs. For the use stage, as described in the functional unit, the rated powers of the model LFL and CFL products in this study are 18 and 20 W, respectively, while the operating time for both types of lamp is 10,000 h. Thus, 180 and 200 kWh of electricity are consumed by the LFL and CFL, respectively, during the use stage. For the disposal stage at EoL, the Eco-island Science and Technology Co., LTD. (Eco-island), which is the only enterprise that has obtained the hazardous waste operation license covering mercury-containing lamps in Beijing, was selected as the representative enterprise for assessing the potential environmental impacts, and the actual operation data for 1 year (2013) was collected. It should be noted that only the crushing and sieving processes are carried out separately for LFLs and other types of FLs such as CFLs and circular FLs; then, the mixed wastes are treated together. Consequently, the energy and material consumptions are counted for the disposal of all types of FLs rather than separately counted for each type of FL. Shown in Fig. 1 is the flow chart of waste FLs at Ecoisland. The capacity for FL disposal in Eco-island is 1,500 metric tons, while the actual amount treated in 2013 was 350 metric tons; the related energy and material consumptions are presented in Table 2. The electricity mix in two different regions, Beijing and China as a whole, was investigated, and the rates of electricity loss during transmission were also considered. Using the statistics for 2012, Table 3 presents the details of the electricity mix proportions and loss during transmission in both Beijing and China.

2.3 Life cycle impact assessment For the phase of life cycle impact assessment, two methods were selected, one belonging to the Bmidpoint^ and the other to the Bendpoint^ category of approach (Welz et al. 2011; Sangwan et al. 2014), in order that the advantages of one approach may compensate for the disadvantages of the other.

Fig. 1 Flow chart of waste FL disposal process in Eco-island

Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:807–818 Table 2 Energy and material consumptions for waste FL disposal in Eco-island Category

Unit

Amount

Input Electricity Oxygen Nitrogen

kWh L L

66,000 7,600 3,600

kg

1,000

L L kg kg kg

4,375 3,000 4,000 8,000 18,000

kg kg kg

8,050 13 335,300

kg kg

52.42 0.0495

kg kg

6,650 30,000

kg

2,985

Sulfur-laden activated carbon (content of S, 11.5 % (wt%)) Diesel for transportation during collection Diesel for in-plant transportation and forklift Water Cement Sand and aggregate Output Aluminum Mercury Glass cullet Emissions to air Particulates Mercury Waste Waste phosphorus Hazardous waste from spent activated carbon solidification and stabilization Waste plastic (incineration)

For the Bendpoint^ approach, the results obtained can be easily interpreted but usually exhibit greater uncertainty when compared with the accuracy of the results by the Bmidpoint^ approach (Guinée et al. 2001). On the other hand, the Bendpoint^ approach has the disadvantage that the various impacts are separately treated in independent categories. The BEco-Indicator 99^ (EI99) method is one of the most commonly used Bendpoint^ methods for environmental impact assessment. Using this method, various


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Table 3 Electricity mix and transmission loss rate in Beijing and China as a whole (2012) Category

Proportion (%) Beijing

China

Thermal power

97.04

78.05

Hydropower Nuclear power Wind power Others Loss rates of during transmission

0.48 – 2.48 – 5.59

17.56 1.95 1.92 0.52 5.82

Data source: Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) Survey Office in Beijing (2014); National Bureau of Statistics of China (2014a, b); National Statistics Offices of the BRICS (2014)

potential environmental impacts are aggregated into just three categories of damage—human health, ecosystem quality, and resource consumption. The assessment results can be tallied up into one single indicator, expressed as ecoindicator points (EIP) (Goedkoop and Spriensma 2000, 2001; Josa et al. 2007). For the Bmidpoint^ approach, the Centrum voor Milieuwetenschappen Leiden (CML) 2001 method is used, and the following impact categories were selected to describe the assessment results: – – – – – – –

Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) Acidification potential (AP) Eutrophication potential (EP) Global warming potential (GWP) Ozone layer depletion potential (ODP) Human toxicity potential (HTP) Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP)

Fig. 2 Complete life cycle environmental impacts of LFL and CFL expressed by the EcoIndicator 99 method

– – –

Marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential (MAETP) Terrestrial ecotoxicity potential (TETP) Photochemical oxidation potential (POP)

The life cycle assessments were carried out using the Simapro 8.0 software and the database Ecoinvent v3.0.

3 Results and discussion 3.1 Environmental impacts of the complete life cycle The results of the complete life cycle environmental impact assessment of LFLs and CFLs are presented in Fig. 2. They demonstrate that the use stage causes the most significant environmental impacts for both the LFL and the CFL, accounting for about 99.4 and 94.6 % of the total impacts, respectively. A similar proportion was obtained in the assessment conducted by Sangwan et al. (2014), where their results were 99.8 % for LFL and 92.3 % for CFL. For the manufacturing stage, the environmental impacts generated by CFL are one order of magnitude higher than those of LFL, mainly the result of the electronic component of ballast. The impacts of distribution are negligible when compared with the manufacturing or use stage; the impacts of transportation of LFL and CFL for a distance of 100 km by truck are just about 1/500 and 1/9,800, respectively, those of the manufacturing stage. Therefore, changes in the transportation distance barely affect the total environmental impacts of fluorescent lamps, especially when train and/or freighter is used. Due to the recycling of aluminum, mercury, and cullet, the EoL stage yields environmental benefits. The value for LFL is 0.06 Pt, three times greater than the 0.02 Pt for CFL. When the point values of all four

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stages of the life cycle are added together, the environmental impact of LFL, at 17.53 Pt, is about 14.3 % less than that of the CFL, at 20.52 Pt. Finally, when considering the relative impacts in the categories of human health, ecosystem quality, and resources at each stage of the FL life cycle, it is apparent that human health takes up the largest proportion of the total impact at each stage, except for that of distribution. The impact on human health accounts for about 91 % of the overall impacts in the complete life cycle and use stage for both LFLs and CFLs. Meanwhile, it also accounts the largest proportion in the stages of manufacturing and EoL, with the values of 66 and 65 %, respectively, for LFLs and 87 and 65 % for CFLs. For the distribution stage, the resource impact is most significant at 91 % for both types of FLs. Of the 11 categories of major impacts presented in Fig. 3, the largest proportion is respiratory inorganics (Resp. inorganics), at about 73 % of the total 17.53 Pt for the complete life cycle of LFLs, followed by climate change, fossil fuels, and carcinogens with proportions of about 14, 4, and 4 %, respectively. The situation is similar for the CFL; the proportions for the four categories are 72, 13, 4, and 6 %. In the manufacturing stage, the impacts from the carcinogens, respiratory inorganics, and fossil fuels dominate, accounting for about 81 and 92 % of the impacts of LFLs and CFLs, respectively, within this stage.

Fig. 3 The 11 major impacts of LFLs and CFLs


According to the assessment results obtained by the CML method (Table 4), the environmental impacts caused by the complete life cycle of CFL are slightly higher than those of 1.25 LFLs with an equivalent lifetime. The total impact value of each category for CFL was used as the reference for normalizing the impact of each stage. Comparisons of the ten categories of impacts between LFL and CFL are exhibited in Fig. 4. ODP is the category in which CFL and LFL display the greatest disparity, with 59 % of the impact occurring during the CFL manufacturing stage. Other values of the CFL use stage are more than 85 % of the complete life cycle. When compared with the studies by Scholand and Dillon (2012), the minimum proportion for use stage is presented in the ODP as well, with a value of 53.4 %, the other categories exceed 67 %, while, according to the results by Sangwan et al. (2014), the minimum proportion is found in the HTP with a value of 74.4 %. The assessments by Principi and Fioretti (2014) and Tähkämö et al. (2014) even indicated that the use stage accounted for more than 90 % in all the categories that analyzed the environmental impacts in the complete life cycle of CFL. Those differences mainly resulted because of the energy efficiency (Principi and Fioretti 2014) and the lifespan (Tähkämö et al. 2014) of CFL and the electricity scenario (Scholand and Dillon 2012; Sangwan et al. 2014). As for the LFL, the use stage accounts for more than 90 % in all the categories of the complete life cycle. It is suggested that these results of LFL are consistent with the

Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:807–818 Table 4 Comparison between the environmental impacts assessed with the CML method for the LFL and CFL: total impact and values for each life cycle stage

Impact category

813

Unit

Total

Manufacturing

Distribution

Use

EoL

ADP

kg Sb eq

1.49E+00

4.49E−03

2.71E−05

1.49E+00

−3.72E−03

AP EP GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP TETP POP Impact category

kg SO2 eq kg PO4 eq kg CO2 eq kg CFC-11 eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg C2H4 eq Unit

6.79E−03 1.15E−03 6.59E−01 1.49E−08 1.20E+00 2.77E−01 6.78E+02 2.40E−02 2.80E−04

−4.48E−07 3.01E−07 3.70E−04 2.91E−10 2.51E−04 −3.72E−05 1.16E−01 1.46E−06 8.66E−08

2.59E+00 2.11E−01 2.52E+02 2.16E−07 4.25E+01 2.06E+01 4.74E+04 2.93E−01 9.68E−02

−3.09E−03 −1.32E−03 −5.08E−01 −3.26E−08 −5.85E−01 −2.99E−01 −5.15E+02 −4.34E−02 −1.27E−04

ADP AP EP GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP

kg Sb eq kg SO2 eq kg PO4 eq kg CO2 eq kg CFC-11 eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg 1,4-DB eq kg 1,4-DB eq

2.59E+00 2.11E−01 2.52E+02 1.99E−07 4.31E+01 2.06E+01 4.76E+04 2.73E−01 9.70E−02 CFL Total 1.67E+00 3.04E+00 2.49E−01 2.83E+02 5.51E−07 5.09E+01 2.65E+01 6.17E+04

Manufacturing 2.24E−02 1.68E−01 1.49E−02 3.07E+00 3.24E−07 3.96E+00 3.71E+00 9.23E+03

Distribution 1.60E−05 −2.66E−07 1.78E−07 2.19E−04 1.72E−10 1.49E−04 −2.20E−05 6.89E−02

Use 1.65E+00 2.87E+00 2.35E−01 2.80E+02 2.40E−07 4.72E+01 2.29E+01 5.27E+04

EoL −1.49E−03 −1.24E−03 −5.27E−04 −2.03E−01 −1.31E−08 −2.34E−01 −1.20E−01 −2.06E+02

TETP POP

kg 1,4-DB eq kg C2H4 eq

3.18E−01 1.15E−01

1.03E−02 7.63E−03

8.62E−07 5.13E−08

3.25E−01 1.08E−01

−1.74E−02 −5.09E−05

proportion obtained by Sangwan et al. (2014), where the least proportion for use stage in the life cycle is 97 %. Meanwhile, the EoL stage has a relatively larger influence on the TETP than on the other categories, especially for the LFL, for which it makes up approximately 16 % of the impacts. Fig. 4 Comparison between the environmental impacts assessed with the CML method, for the LFL and the CFL

LFL

3.2 Impacts during the manufacturing stage As demonstrated in Figs. 5 and 6, human health dominates the impacts within the manufacturing stage, where the values are about 0.073 and 0.978 Pt for the LFL and the CFL, respectively, accounting for about 66 and

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Fig. 5 Environmental impacts caused by the manufacturing of LFLs

87 % of the total impacts of 0.110 and 1.12 Pt in the manufacturing stage. The difference between the impacts of LFLs and CFLs is due mainly to the ballast in CFL, whereas the impacts are approximately of the same value (0.110 and 0.115 Pt) when the ballast in the CFL is not considered. The ballast accounts for about 90 % of the environmental impacts of the CFL in the manufacturing stage, and the resistor, printed wired board (PWB), and capacitor are the three components with the highest impacts in ballast, which constitutes about 41, 32, and 20 % of the ballast impacts, respectively. As for the manufacturing stage of the LFL, the copper, electricity, glass tube, aluminum, and packaging are the five inputs with the highest impacts, accounting for

Fig. 6 Environmental impacts caused by the manufacturing of CFLs

about 38, 26, 25, 4.8, and 5.5 % of the impacts in this stage, respectively, while the other inputs account for less than 0.5 %. 3.3 Impacts during the distribution stage The FLs are transported from manufacturers to sellers in three main ways—truck, train, and freighter. Over half of the FLs produced in China were exported to more than 170 countries and regions in recent years. However, in this assessment, we focus on the scenarios within China, where manufacturers prefer to transport by truck, although transportation by train and/or freighter over the equivalent distance has less environmental impact. Thus, we assessed


Fig. 7 Comparison of the environmental impacts of LFL and CFL assessed with Beijing (BJ) and China (CN) electricity mix scenarios

the environmental impacts by truck over a unit distance (100 km). As discussed in Section 3.1, the impacts within the stage of distribution (100 km) are negligible compared with those of the manufacturing stage. They are 2.5–4 orders of magnitude less than for the manufacturing stage and barely influence the impacts of the complete life cycle. 3.4 Impacts during the use stage The use stage is the most important stage in the life cycle of FLs because of its large impacts, as presented in Fig. 2. In this assessment, two different scenarios of electricity mix were used—Beijing and China as a whole, listed in the Table 3. Although the ratio of electricity lost during transmission in the China mix scenario is higher than in the Beijing mix scenario, more clean power (as opposed

Fig. 8 Comparison of the environmental impacts caused by different electricity mix scenarios: Beijing and China

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to thermal power) is used in the China mix scenario. The assessed environmental impacts are lower when the China mix is used, and the detailed comparison of the differences between LFL and CFL in these two different scenarios is exhibited in Figs. 7, and 8. In the Beijing (BJ) electricity mix scenario, the environmental impact value of the LFL in the use stage is about 17.48 Pt, about 90 % of the value of 19.43 Pt for the CFL. This indicates that the environmental impacts can be eased when the China electricity mix is used, achieving a reduction of approximately 19 %, to about 14.16 Pt for LFLs and 15.74 Pt for CFLs. Because there are no detailed data about the composition of other electricity categories in China except that it comes mainly from biogas, as noted in Section B1,^ the relatively clean (compared to thermal power) hydropower energy is substituted. According to the results presented in Fig. 8, hydropower shows better performance than wind, nuclear, and especially thermal power. For the China electricity mix, the consumption of hydropower accounts for 18.07 % of the electricity consumption within the use stage of FLs; however, it generates only 0.24 % of the impacts of the four categories of electricity. Meanwhile, the 1.95 and 1.92 % electricity consumption from nuclear power and wind power generates about 0.20 and 0.23 % of impacts. The thermal power (by coal) shows the worst environmental performance, accounting for about 99 % of the impacts with 78.05 % of the electricity contribution. 3.5 Impacts during the end-of-life stage The FLs in the EoL stage (or waste FLs) are sent to the hazardous waste treatment enterprises licensed to treat mercury-

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Fig. 9 Environmental impacts of waste FLs (1 kg) disposal

containing lamps. The flow chart describing the treatment of waste FLs, including LFLs and CFLs, in Eco-island, is shown in Fig. 1. Although the transportation for collection is not presented in the figure, it is included in the assessment because it is an important part of the management of FLs in the EoL stage. In this assessment, the most common transportation distance for collection is 100 km (Fig. 9). It has been suggested that net environmental benefits can be obtained in the EoL stage of FLs with professional treatment; the value of this net environmental benefit is about 0.249 Pt for 1 kg of treated waste FLs. The value of environmental benefit obtained from treatment of the same weight of waste FLs is 0.285 Pt in total. The majority, approximately 83 %, comes from the reuse of cullet from glass tubes, 16.8 % comes from aluminum, and

Fig. 10 Life cycle environmental impacts of LFL and CFL in different electricity mix scenarios: Beijing (BJ) and China (CN)

0.02 % from mercury. The amount of environmental burden is about 0.036 Pt, which is only about 12.7 % of the total benefit. The thermal power, oxygen, diesel, and hazardous waste from mercury-containing activated carbon solidification and stabilization are the four sources generating the highest environmental burdens, accounting for 50.4, 20.9, 10.9, and 10.6 % of the burdens, respectively.

3.6 Life cycle environmental impacts in different electricity mix scenarios As discussed in Section 3.4, it can be concluded that the environmental impacts of electric power can be eased by a reduction of 19 % when the power sources are changed from the Beijing to the China electricity mix. According to the assessment results, for the complete life cycles of LFL and CFL, the environmental impacts from electricity consumption in the Beijing electricity mix scenario are about 17.52 and 19.48 Pt and account for about 99.9 and 94.9 % of the total impacts, respectively. It has been determined that the environmental impacts of electricity use could fall to about 14.19 Pt for LFL and 15.78 Pt for CFL when the China electricity mix is used. Consequently, the total environmental impacts of the complete life cycle can be reduced by about 81 %, to 14.21 Pt for LFL, and 82 %, to 16.82 Pt for CFL, in the Beijing electricity mix scenario. The details of the contribution of electricity to the environmental impacts of LFL and CFL are presented in Fig. 10. Expanding the use of clean electricity and reducing the proportion of thermal power from coal could significantly reduce the environmental impacts of the FL life cycle.


4 Conclusions This study has evaluated and compared the environmental impacts of two types of FL—linear and compact. The assessment considers all stages of the FL life cycle, applying actual operating data from a FL manufacturer (for the manufacturing stage assessment) and a licensed waste FL treatment enterprise in Beijing (for the EoL stage). The relative contributions of different electricity mix scenarios and different transportation modes to the total environmental impacts have also been discussed. 1. The comparison among the environmental impacts of the complete life cycle in the selected CFL and LFL with equivalent lifetimes showed that the investigated LFL presents a slightly better environmental performance than the CFL with an impact value of 17.5 Pt versus 20.5 Pt. It is mainly because of the low lumens per watt and the ballast of the CFL. However, it is expected that the performance of CFL can be improved by energy efficiency, lifespan, and utilization of centralized ballast. The use stage has the largest impact on the life cycle, accounting for about 94.6 and 99.4 % of the total impacts of CFLs and LFL, respectively. This is followed by the manufacturing and transportation stages, while the EoL stage shows net environmental benefits. 2. The most significant contribution to total environmental impacts over the life cycle of FLs is the consumption of electricity. This contribution is 94.9 % for CFLs and 99.9 % for LFLs. According to the assessment results, the environmental impact generated by the China electricity mix is reduced by 19 % in the Beijing electricity mix scenario, when the same amount of electricity is consumed. 3. The worst environmental performance is given by thermal power from coal, and the environmental impacts of CFL and LFL can be reduced with a transition to cleaner energy sources. The life cycle environmental impacts of CFL and LFL using the China electricity mix scenario can be reduced to about 82 and 81 %, respectively, with the Beijing electricity mix. 4. During the manufacturing stage, the CFL generates about 10 times the environmental impact of LFL; the impact values of these two types of FLs are about 1.12 and 0.11 Pt, respectively. As for the manufacturing of CFL, the components of ballast, including resistor, PWB, capacitor, miniature coil, and diode, generate 0.90 Pt of the 1.12 Pt. 5. The environmental impacts of the distribution stage are comparatively negligible. The value of the impact generated by a transportation distance of 100 km using trucks is 2.5–4 orders of magnitude less than that of the manufacturing stage and thus hardly influences the complete life cycle impact. 6. The EoL stage of FLs shows net environmental benefits when proper recycling and disposal measures are adopted.

817

The value of the net environmental benefit from the treatment of 1 kg of FLs with the process used in the case study is about 0.25 Pt. The environmental benefits come mainly from the reuse and recycling of cullet and aluminum, while impacts come mainly from the consumption of electricity, oxygen, and diesel, as well as the disposal of hazardous waste from the mercury-containing activated carbon solidification and stabilization. Based on the assessment results of this study, the transition to environmentally friendly energy sources could significantly reduce the life cycle environmental impacts of FLs due to the high proportion of impacts from electricity consumption. As for the EoL stage of FLs, the environmental burden could be reduced by reducing the oxygen consumption through technological improvements. It would also be of help to compare the outcomes of different waste FL treatment technologies in minimizing the life cycle environmental impacts. Acknowledgments This work was financially supported by the National Key Technologies R&D Program (No. 2014BAC03B04). The authors would also like to thank Panasonic Lighting (Beijing) Co., Ltd. and Eco-island Science and Technology Co., LTD. for providing the data.

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