Greenhouse gas emission offsetting by refrigerant recovery from WEEE: A case study on a WEEE recycling plant in Korea

The demand for new electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has resulted in short replacement cycles for this equipment. This has led to the generation of a large amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The proper disposal of WEEE is essential in order to manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as refrigerant injected EEE is a potential source of GHG emissions. In this study, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from recycling activities that resulted in GHG emissions via refrigerant recovery were quantitatively evaluated. The evaluation was conducted based on the operational data from a WEEE recycling plant in 2016. To estimate CO₂ emission and offsetting effects, mass-balance and carbon-footprint analyses were conducted. The mass-balance data showed that 22,804 t of WEEE were recycled in a plant. The carbon-footprint analysis estimated that CO₂ emissions from all recycling activities, including all machinery and vehicles as well as fossil fuel and electricity use, reached approximately 4.097 × 10³ tonne of CO₂ eq. Meanwhile, the CO₂ emissions prevented by the manual recovery of refrigerants (5186 kg) from WEEE accounted for approximately 2.877 × 10⁴ tonne of CO₂ eq. These results, based on data from a recycling plant and showing an offset of CO₂ emissions by a factor of 7.02, demonstrate that refrigerant recovery could potentially reduce emissions by 2.467 × 10⁴ tonne of CO₂ eq. per year. This study will demonstrate the optimal methodologies for estimating CO₂ emissions and offsetting, and inform environmental policy by providing an alternative approach to the problem of global warming.