Research On Barriers Analysis For Implementation Of EPR Among Refrigerator-Producers Based On LCA

Along with problems of the polluting environment and the lacking of resources becoming increasingly outstanding, the management of waste products as carried with potential possibility of pollution has become a major problem in many countries for sustainable development. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a waste management principle that generated for the increasingly serious problem of waste. But the implementation of EPR in our country started relatively late, there are still many shortcomings and have little effect. China is one of the largest production and consumption electronics in the world, and the theory of refrigerator scrap for 2013 is 127,857,00. Therefore, it is necessary and meaningful to study the implementation of the EPR of refrigerator-producers.Based on the analysis of life cycle assessment (LCA) theory and LCA application of domestic and foreign firstly, this paper uses LCA methodology to analysis 10000 household refrigerators. According to evaluation framework of ISO 14040, this paper analysis the energy consumption and environmental impact of the raw material extraction phase, manufacturing phase, sales and transport phase, use and waste disposal phase. Through analysis, our conclusion is that energy consumption of the use phase is the largest in the whole life cycle of refrigerator. At the aspect of environmental emissions, whether global warming, acidification, eutrophication or photochemical pollution, the use phase of refrigerator is the largest forever. Then based on the conclusion, this paper analyses the barriers of refrigerator-producers’ implementation of EPR. The paper first to limits the connotation of the refrigerator enterprise’s EPR, and then to identify the constraints of refrigerator enterprises’ implementation of EPR by reading literatures and interviews. Finally the identified barriers are analyzed by means of Grey-DEMATEL. The conclusion is that:the key factors to restrain refrigerator enterprises’ implementation of EPR are the lack of incentive mechanism of ecological design by government and the low confidence of consumers on the technology mature degree and economic of energy-saving products. And the important cause factor is also the lack of incentive mechanism of ecological design by government (including energy-saving design and the design to easy dismantle and component reuse and materials recycling); finally, according to the key factors and the important cause factors restricting EPR, this paper puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions for China’s refrigerator enterprises’ implementation of EPR.