Environmental effects of mercury in used fluorescent tube through disposal stage M. HARA*, T. HONDA*, H. X. Nguyen *, K. NAKAZAWA**, R. YAMAMOTO* and I. YASUI*** Institute of Industrial Science University of Tokyo Good morning. I am Minako Hara from University of Tokyo, Japan. Today my presentation is on “Environmental effects of mercury in used fluorescent tube through disposal stage.

Introduction Purpose ・ 2007: RoHS direction enacted ・ Difficult to substitute Mercury in fluorescent tube ・ Not enough data for general population Purpose One of the most important issues in the electronic industry is that Directives on Waste Electrical Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of the Hazardous Substance (RoHS) will be effective in 2007. The Directive was ruled to limit the use of 6 toxic substances such as mercury, lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and two kinds of brominated flame retardant. Though mercury in fluorescent tube is grouped in exemption of this directive, it might be limited in EU countries in near future. The directive is based on occupied exposure data, thus its prediction might not enough to avoid risk. Inhalation was predicted the most important exposure path. In this research, we calculated the exposure of mercury through air in deposit stage of fluorescent tube. We also calculate mercury emission, energy consumption and solid waste using LCA method. ・Calculating the exposure of mercury through air ・Calculating mercury emission, energy consumption and solid waste through deposition stage

This is the material flow of fluorescent tube in Japan. Now, almost of them are landfilled without treatment. Recycling is only about 5%. Some tubes are mixed with combustible waste and mercury is emitted by incineration.

Figure 2 Emission and consumption Eco-indicator 99 EPS 2000 This figure shows the mercury emission, energy consumption and solid waste. The Figure 3 shows the evaluation with other method. There was a difference between studied results and LCA results (such as Eco-Indicator 95, Eco-Indicator 99 and EPS). This is because these LCIA methods did not concern about the human health effect of mercury. Despite of the difference, our conclusion is that future collection practice should increase the ratio of resource-collection and energy efficiency in order to reduce total energy consumption and save landfill area. Thank you for your attention. Do you have any question, please. Figure 2　Emission and consumption Figure 3　Evaluation with other methods