A Study on Material Circulation Indicator － A Case of PET Bottle
Date Issued
2006
Date
2006
Author(s)
Tung, Yen-Hsi
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Resource consumption and waste management are critical issues for sustainable development. Recycling-based society is an imperative objective and a proper indicator is needed to serve as a comparison criterion.
The principles of recycling-based society are effective resource utilization and decrease of environmental loads. Present indicators chiefly emphasized the material recycling rate and the efficiency of input-output processes. As for resources re-use after being recycled and re-processed, the effect of material characteristic on recycling ability and the additional pollutants were often ignored.
This paper developed the indicator by combining the material circulation index and the environmental load index to reflect resource use efficiency and the environmental impact from the re-processing. The Eco-indicator 99 model of life cycle assessment was chosen to calculate environmental impact. Material circulation was established by material flow analysis.
The circulation indicator developed in this study can be applied to all kinds of recycling material. Especially, the material circulation index was based on the resource use efficiency affected by the characteristic and decay of material.
PET bottles were used as the case study because the recycling of PET bottles has been an important issue. In this study, we analyzed PET bottles from 2002 to 2004 in Taiwan and compared the PET bottle recycling in Taiwan with that in Japan. The results showed that Taiwan PET circulation indicator values were 6.36 in 2003, 6.7 in 2003, and 7.16 in 2004. The increase suggested a trend toward recycling-based society. In comparison of Taiwan and Japan in 2004, the value was 7.16 and 29.05, respectively, due to different recycling systems. PET bottle recycling system in Japan was better than Taiwan in term of the pursuit toward recycling-based society.
Subjects
material flow analysis, life cycle assessment, recycling-based society, circulation indicator, bottle to bottle
Type
thesis
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