Abstract
The mobile e-waste recycling equipment was chosen as the object of this study, including manual dismantling, mechanical separation of cathode ray tubes (CRTs), and printed circuit boards (PCBs) in the two independent workshops. To determine the potential environmental contamination, the noise, the heavy metals (Cu, Cd, Pb), and the environmental impacts of the e-waste recycling processes in the two workshops of the mobile plant have been evaluated in this paper. This study determined that when control measures are employed, the noise within the two workshops (<80 dB) will meet the national standards. In the CRT workshop, Pb was the most polluting metal, with 2.3 μg/m3 and 10.53 mg/g in the air and floor dust, respectively. The result of a health risk assessment shows that noncancerous effects are possible for Pb (hazard index (HI) = 3.54 in the CRT workshop and HI = 1.27 in the PCB workshop). The carcinogenic risks to workers for Cd are relatively light in both the workshops. From the results of life cycle assessment (LCA), it can be seen that there was an environmental benefit from the e-waste recycling process as a whole.
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Acknowledgments
The work was financially supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program, 2009AA06Z304), Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (2014DFM90170), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M540966), and a special fund of the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control (11Z02ESPCT).
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Figures showing the e-waste Integrated mobile recycling plant and its material flows. Tables showing the values and assumptions for the environmental impact assessment in the e-waste treatment processes (DOCX 886 kb).
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Song, Q., Zeng, X., Li, J. et al. Environmental risk assessment of CRT and PCB workshops in a mobile e-waste recycling plant. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 12366–12373 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4350-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4350-9