A Study On The Spent Fluorescent Lamp Safe Management Based On Life Cycle Assessment

The fluorescent lamp as a kind of high energy-saving lamp is widely used in social production and living. In addition, with the strong support of government policy to energy-saving light industry, this industry will develop rapidly and prosperously. However the pollution problems caused by this development could not be ignored. Spent fluorescent lamp is frequently a hazardous waste, for its main toxic ingredients are mercury, lead and arsenic. If improperly dealt with, it will pose harm to human health and environment. On the other hand, waste fluorescent lamp contains copper, aluminum, tungsten and other important resources. Consequently, considering safety and recycle, this waste should be disposed properly. The solid waste treatments currently include landfill, incineration, recovery, etc. How to evaluate these treatments and find out which is appropriate is of interest for managers.Life cycle assessment (LCA) as an environmental management tool with potential application value, not only can analyze quantitatively the current environmental conflicts, but also evaluate environmental impacts from cradle to grave process of the whole studied systems. So this method has been widely used in the solid waste management process, as a decision-making basis for managers.The theoretical and practical application of LCA and relevant evaluation models at home and abroad were reviewed in this paper. Based on LCA framework, the multi attribute utility theory is introduced and the LCA model is established in which minimization of environmental impacts is an ultimate goal, with resource consumption, non-living ecosystem impact, human health and ecological toxicity as indicators. According to inventory analysis, the related data were quantified and further standardized. Additionally, these indicator weights were calculated by means of analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Finally, a case study was demonstrated by this model and a scheme with less environmental impact from four candidate schemes, including sanitary landfill, solidification landfill, mechanical recovery and manual recycling, was found out. From the model, it was concluded that the sanitary landfill scheme was optimum and environmental impact utility values of the recycling schemes were far below the landfill schemes, for their impact utility values of human health and ecological efficiency were considerably low.