Assessing the impact of recycling exports
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The development of sustainable markets for the growing quantities of recyclates is a critical factor in the move towards creating a recycling society. How can the sustainability of emerging markets be assured?
A range of analytical tools, from materials flow analysis through to life cycle analysis (LCA), are being applied to gain a deeper understanding of the true implications of development of markets for the growing quantity and range of second-life materials. This knowledge can offer decision makers at all levels an evidence base on which to direct recyclates and support development of markets that maximise the environmental benefit of recycling activity.
What has LCA told us so far?
About three years ago the UK Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) commissioned a review of existing life cycle analysis projects that evaluated the environmental impact of managing key materials in different ways.¹ Having identified several hundred studies, 55 ‘state-of-the-art’ LCAs were selected for detailed review, comprising over 200 different scenarios, each one described as an LCA in its own right. WRAP concluded that ‘Across the board, most studies show that recycling offers more environmental benefits and lower environmental impacts than other waste management options.’
 Recycling for collection in the UK |
With the policy focus on outcomes to reduce carbon emissions WRAP conducted further analysis of the research findings to provide an assessment of the relative greenhouse gas savings associated with current UK levels of recycling for paper/cardboard, glass, plastics, aluminium and steel. It states that ‘Again, the results are clear and positive. The UK’s current recycling of those materials saves between 10-15 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year compared to applying the current mix of landfill and incineration with energy recovery to the same materials. This is equivalent to about 10% of the annual CO2 emissions from the transport’.
However, on closer examination there are some cases where the answer is not as obvious as suggested – the differences between study outcomes on the same material is attributed largely as a reflection of where systems boundaries have been defined, what local conditions have been modelled and what question is being addressed. Figure 1 shows how the individual LCAs performed on avoided greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalent by material.
The EWM research project
The state of LCA is constantly evolving and further LCA studies have reported since the WRAP review. One such study formed part of the Interreg IIIC European Waste Management (EWM) Project, funded by the South East England Regional Assembly and Environment Agency for England & Wales, focusing upon the recycling of five specific materials: plastics, paper, card, glass and wood. The EWM project hopes to offer decision makers a sense of what they could expect from applying LCA and life-cycle thinking in policy processes, and what kind of information different tools can provide.
 Recycling ready for export |
The research was undertaken in two parallel stages. First the recycling markets in selected EU states were examined including identification of international flows of recyclable materials. Secondly, the carbon footprint of selected long distance flows was assessed to gain a deeper understanding of their environmental performance. Three representative questions were addressed within this second phase of work:
- Is reprocessing recovered fibre and second-life plastic in the UK preferable to exporting the materials to China for reprocessing?
- Is using recovered wood as a fuel in the Netherlands preferable to export for particle board production in Italy?
- Is incineration with energy recovery of beverage cartons in the UK preferable to export to Sweden for multi-material reprocessing and energy recovery?
Greenhouse gas emissions were considered the key parameter when seeking answers to these questions, reflecting the mounting global attention and investment in climate change mitigation.
Project methodology: the assumptions made
The project included several important assumptions. First, it was assumed that the second-life materials have already been separated and are ready to be reprocessed. While the modelling of collection and separation could significantly affect the reprocessing performance of second-life materials, due to contamination level, this is common in all scenarios evaluated.
 A ship of recycling bound for China |
Secondly, in the absence of definitive data of shipping patterns, it was assumed that ship emissions are attributed to the return trip (one-way emissions). It was also assumed that the ship transiting is fully loaded. n.b. there is considerable debate about whether shipping emissions of ‘return loads’ back to China should be attributed to the recycling process at all. The findings for recovered fibre (below) demonstrate the way in which LCA outcomes can be influenced by such assumptions and the sensitivity of this type of assessment.
Finally, in the absence of reliable data for the reprocessing industry in China, it was necessary to assume that the environmental performance of Chinese reprocessing was the same as an average reprocessing plant in Europe. This was a major assumption which can work both ways, for while much has been reported on the poor environmental performance of Chinese industry, the rapid expansion in capacity has seen the installation of large plants built to modern standards which may be superior to plant in Europe.
Emerging policy messages: Question 1
When addressing the first of the afore-mentioned three questions, we find that the carbon savings associated with using recovered fibre and second-life plastic in place of virgin material is greater in China than in UK. This suggests that a greater global carbon saving can be gained by supplying recyclate to China, even though the absolute carbon emissions are greater in China. However, if the impact of shipping emissions to China is taken into account the outcome is as follows:
- The beneficial impact of Chinese reprocessing of recovered fibre is cancelled out completely. Regardless of the fuel efficiency of ships, the use of UK-sourced recovered fibre sent to China leads to a larger carbon footprint than use of UK-sourced virgin pulp.
- In contrast for second-life plastics, the carbon footprint of shipping from the UK to China does not outweigh the global warming potential (GWP) savings that originate from reprocessing in China. This is due to the high level of virgin plastic manufacturing in China.
The main policy messages emerging when considering question one were:
- Using recovered fibre or second-life polymers in production in UK is to be preferred.
- Fibre or polymer use in China is inevitable so provision of second-life materials will reduce the carbon footprint of the production process, compared to virgin production.
- Taking a wider view, by supplying second-life materials to China the EU is going some way to reduce the carbon burden of having shifted production there.
Emerging policy messages: Question 2
When weighing up the respective merits of using wood as a fuel in the Netherlands compared with its export to Italy for use in particle board manufacture, two main conclusions emerged:
- The benefits of local use as a fuel for electricity are greater than long distance recycling, from a GWP perspective.
- However, the results are highly dependent on the electricity mix of the country under study.
This suggests that the emphasis on material recycling over energy recovery, implied by the waste hierarchy and enshrined in the Packaging Directive targets, is actually resulting in activity that does not maximise the scope for GHG emission reductions. This significant finding reinforces the need for a full LCA to be undertaken prior to prescriptive Directives being introduced. And this outcome is confirmed by a carbon balances study undertaken in the UK, which found that recovering energy from recovered wood, even at relatively low conversion efficiency, conveys a significantly greater greenhouse gas benefit than even high value recycling. This is attributed to wood’s relatively low energy requirement in manufacturing and high calorific value.
Emerging policy messages: Question 3
Finally, in answering question three, incineration of whole beverage cartons in the UK ‘performs’ better than reprocessing of cartons for fibre recovery in Sweden. This can be attributed to two main factors:
- Incineration of the whole carton in the UK produces energy that substitutes energy supplied from fossil fuels. Also the direct emissions produced have a low GWP because paper is primarily biogenic carbon.
- In contrast the avoided emissions by recycling in Sweden are low because the Swedish energy mix is mainly based on nuclear and hydropower, and thus has low carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced.
This conclusion works against current producer led initiatives to increase collection of beverage cartons for recycling in certain EU states although the results are very much skewed by the low carbon loading of the Swedish energy mix. Hence the need to focus on developing carton reprocessing capacity in the UK itself.
Looking to the future: GHG emissions
GHG emissions associated with the import and export of goods and second-life materials is intrinsically linked to the availability and demand for resources at a local, regional and global level.
Over the 1992–2002 period, CO2 emissions in China expanded at a 3.7% average annual rate, more than two and a half times the global average of 1.4%. China’s total carbon emissions are more than double those of Japan and Russia, fractionally behind the European Union’s, and a little more than half those of the United States. At that rate, according to a recent report issued by the International Energy Agency, China will surpass the United States as the global leader in carbon emissions by 2009. (Indeed, other authors have since estimated that China is the biggest emitter in 2008.) While this may be an inevitable consequence of the transfer of manufacturing to China, it is important to ensure that the transfer of associated emissions is properly accounted for.
In 2003, the OECD published a report entitled Carbon Dioxide Emissions Embodied in International Trade of Goods. This report, based on 24 countries and representing 80% of the global CO2 emissions, explored the consequences of displacement of manufacturing capacity to countries outside the EU in terms of carbon emissions. When using domestic consumption of embodied GHG emissions, they estimated that emissions embodied in imports represent more than 30% of domestic production for selected countries. That is to say for the same unit of production a third more carbon is emitted.
More research would be necessary, through the use of a full LCA, to integrate the factors of global warming potential and resource depletion in relevant analyses, as it is conceivable that the extraction of further primary materials in the country of production can lead to:
- a greater abiotic (i.e. non-living finite)resource depletion.
- and a higher GHG emission than the emissions from the import of the second-life materials. Moreover production processes outside the EU may not use technology that meets the same emission standards.
Packaging waste regulations in Europe have recently been amended so that materials exported for recycling should be dealt with at facilities operating to broadly equivalent standards. Much more research is required to obtain robust life cycle inventories from countries such as China if this requirement is to ensure that environmental burdens are not simply exported out of the EU.
Alan Potter MCIWM, MCEnv, UKELA Director, Beyond Waste, e-mail: alan@beyond-waste.com, and Emmanuel Gentil of Technical University of Denmark
References
1. Environmental Benefits of Recycling: an international review of life cycle comparisons for key materials in the UK recycling sector, WRAP, 2006.
