A Study on Comprehensive Analysis Incorporating Environmental Load into Manual Labor within the Recycling Process

Abstract

Manual labor by workers is often necessary in the recycling process. Until now, in studies of life cycle analysis, manual labor has hardly been calculated into the environmental load. Although some machines or equipment are used in the process, these evaluations can not be considered comprehensive as they ignore analysis of environmental load for the manual labor process. In this study, we investigated actual conditions in recycling facilities, and tried to analyze the environmental load incorporating manual labor that is considered indispensable within the recycling process. The results were applied to the process of motor dismantling, comparing environmental load by worker manual labor with that of an automatic dismantling system in which shape memory alloy screws were used. Through this case study, we examined the possibility of replacing manual labor with an automatic dismantling system in the recycling process.