A discussion on the resource circulation strategy of the refrigerator

In order to discuss the optimal resource circulation strategy of refrigerat ors, actual resource recovery experiments and a life-cycle simulation were carried out. The combined processing of disassembly and shredding had the m ost high recovery rate, more than 80 wt.% of a refrigerator, while the disa ssembly can recover only 30 wt.% of components as a re-usable component. An alternative strategy, the elongation of life span, had a good performance in improving the resource circulation characteristics. The two-life scenari o can decrease the environmental load by twice that of the conventional rec ycling scenario. However, the elongation of life span does not become a suc cessful resource circulation strategy until the old refrigerator was up-gra ded to a low-energy consumption type after one life-span running. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BN. All rights reserved.