Material flow analysis of discarded refrigerators from households in urban and rural areas of China

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest growing waste streams in China. How to quantify and systematically analyze the flow and materials is a problem. This paper provides a basis for managing refrigerators at both product and substance levels through developed dynamic material flow analysis model, bottom-up (refrigerators grouped by material modules), stock-driven combined with Weibull distribution function and refrigerator life cycle to predict the number of metals and plastics contained in obsolete refrigerators. We found that: (1) A gradual increase of obsolete refrigerators from 1990 to 2035. The total possession of refrigerators is from 417.6 million units in 2016 to 500.3 million units in 2035, with an average annual growth rate for the value 19.8%/20 (years). The total number of obsolete refrigerators is from 28.5 million units in 2016 to 45 million units in 2035, with an average annual growth rate for the value 57.9%/20 (years); a) the possession of refrigerators of urban is higher than the rural areas from 1990 to 2016, but the possession of refrigerators of urban and rural will be convergence in 2035; These growing obsolete refrigerators would mean there are potentially numerous recyclable materials. Such as most precious metals (i.e., Au, Ag), common metals (i.e., Fe, Al, Cu, Sn), toxic metals (i.e., Pb, Sb, Cd, Hg), plastics and gas will reach 0.0072 Gg, 1636.1 Gg, 0.2776 Gg, 930.1 Gg and 29.2 Gg in 2035, respectively. Because of a huge gap on the possession level of e-waste between urban and rural areas in China, this paper recommends that future national policies should focus on recycling and reusing of refrigerators in urban while also focusing on the increasing number of obsolete refrigerators in rural areas.