Abstract
The Law for the Recycling of Specified Home Appliances has been reinforced in Japan in order to promote the recycling of end-of-life home appliances. The number of product types to be covered under this law is expected to increase as a result. While elaborate dismantling of end-of-life products will increase the reuse of parts and the recycling of materials, it may at the same time increase the time and cost required for dismantling. Monitoring how dismantling levels for end-of-life products will need to be set for each individual product will be of great interest.
Hitachi, Ltd. has developed the Recyclability Evaluation Method, known as REM, which allows an estimation of the recycling rate for end-of-life products to be made based on the time and costs required for dismantling. In this paper, REM has been applied to a PDP-TV (plasma display panel television) to investigate the relationship between recycling costs and recycling rates at each level of dismantling, with a comparison made for the same on a CRT-TV. The reliability of the results and the difficulties in covering a PDP-TV under the recycling law are also discussed.
