Abstract
Metal resource recovery from MSW molten fly ash has attracted attention as a new resource recycling system. The fly ash is a kind of 'urban mine' which is generated from the MSW melting process. LCA was performed to evaluate environmental impact potential of this system. Total Material Requirement (TMR) was also applied as an indicator from the viewpoint of 'hidden material flow' or 'ecological rucksack recycle system.
Our results show that the ash melting process with the metal recovery system is more effective in not only reducing the amount of disposal but also saving natural resources, while CO2 emission was the lowest in the case of the landfill disposal.
Among the recycled materials from the melting process, slag accounted for about 90 % in weight, but only 30 % in TMR. On the other hand, 190 ppm of Ag accounted for about 50 % of TMR, suggesting that even small in weight metals such as Pb, Zn and Ag have potent impact in terms of TMR. Therefore, TMR could give useful information in evaluating significance of the metal recovery from the environmental aspect.
