Life Cycle Assessment Of A Horizontal-axis Washing Machine In China

Currently,with the improvement of Chinese people's living standard,almost every family has a washing machine,making it one of the most popular pieces of electrical and electronic equipment in our society.Additionally,among various kinds of washing machine product types,the horizontal-axis washing machines are preferred by consumers and have become the dominant products in the market.Although washing machine facilitates people's life,it brings great concerns about resource depletion and environmental pollution to China due to its production of raw materials,manufacturing,use and disposal,which consume various resources,energy and emit pollutants.Hence,the study quantitatively assesses the life-cycle environmental impacts of a horizontal-axis washing machine and identifies the potential opportunities,which can help promote sustainable development of washing machine industry,and provide scientific bases for the establishment of resource-saving and environment-friendly society.Based on literature review,expert consultation and field investigations,the study applies the methodology of life cycle assessment(LCA)from cradle to grave to define the system boundary of the horizontal-axis washing machine,including the production of raw materials,manufacturing,transportation,usage and end-of-life phase,and collects the data about resource consumption,energy consumption and pollutant emissions throughout the whole life cycle of the washing machine.On this basis,we establish the evaluation model of washing machine with the software Gabi 6.0 and the Ecoievent database.The life-cycle environmental impacts were evaluated quantitatively with the CML2001 method.Various impact categories are used,including abiotic depletion(ADP elements and ADP fossil),acidification potential(AP),eutrophication potential(EP),global warming potential(GWP),ozone layer depletion potential(ODP),photochemical ozone creation potential(POCP),freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity(FAETP),marine aquatic ecotoxicity(MAETP),human toxicity potential(HTP)and terrestrial ecotoxicity potential(TETP).The results indicate that the production and use phases have high impacts compared with other phases,which almost contribute 90%to each impact category for the whole life cycle.The most critical phase is the use phase,which is particularly significant for EP and TETP,and makes up for 87%and 92%respectively.Additionally,the use phase accounts for more than 50%for other impact categories except for ADP elements(15%)and ODP(31%).This is mainly due to large amount of electricity consumption with long operation life,while electricity is mainly produced by coal-fired power plants in China and the process emits pollutant such as S02 and heavy metals,causing serious environmental burden.The second position is taken by production phase.For each impact category,the production phase comprises 8%for TETP to more than 80%for ADP elements.In production phase,the electronics and plastic parts are the most important contributor,further attributable to aluminum and copper consumption in electronics,ABS consumption in plastic parts and electricity consumption during injection molding process.The transportation contributes little impacts,less than 5%for each impact category expect for ODP(21%).However,the impact can be reduced considerably by changing the transportation mode from land transportation to sea transportation.The end-of-life phase brings environmental benefits due to the recycling of materials.Based on the assessment results,the study uses hierarchical pattern to identify the factors which have significant environmental impacts as hotspots by analyzing the each process and elementary flow throughout the whole life cycle of the horizontal-axis washing machine.The hotspots are the areas where the environmental performance can be improved.Additionally,the study puts forward the feasible potential improvement opportunities for hotspots,such as energy-saving retrofitting on injection molding machine,reasonable design of the cooling system during injection molding process,waste heat recovery and high level of raw material recycling.