Purpose

Partitioning is often recommended as allocation procedure in attributional Life Cycle Assessments (a-LCAs). However, little guidance is available on how to apply partitioning to recycled products. This paper aims to demonstrate and discuss the application of the allocation procedure allocation at the point of substitution (APOS) via an evaluation of the impacts of the recycled phosphor yttrium europium oxide (YOX) from end-of-life fluorescent lamps.

Methods

Starting from a multifunctional recycling process, APOS is applied by (1) identifying the products of the foreground sub-system, (2) identifying the origin of the recycled waste, (3) defining the boundaries of the production systems, and (4) applying economic allocation.

Results and discussion

It appears that recycled YOX is accountable for lower impacts than primary YOX for most impact categories. The largest contributor to the impacts of recycled YOX are the impacts related to the primary production of the fluorescent lamp, such as the use of mercury in the lamp tube. Even if this can be counter-intuitive to accept—as these impacts seem unrelated to YOX—these results provide useful information on whether the supply route of rare earth elements (REEs) from end-of-life fluorescent lamps is “future proof,” regarding potential (supply) risks due to environmental impacts upstream in the product supply chain.

Conclusions

The application of APOS is demonstrated on the end-of-life recycling of rare earth elements. APOS provides the user of the recycled REE information about environmental impacts upstream in the product’s value chain. This could inform about the sustainability of the company’s operations—i.e., whether the future use or production of a material might be compromised due to (regulations to decrease) environmental impacts.

中文翻译：

---

“替代时的分配”适用于回收稀土元素：我们可以学到什么？

目的

在归因生命周期评估（a-LCA）中，通常建议使用分区作为分配过程。但是，关于如何将分区应用于回收产品的指南很少。本文旨在通过评估报废荧光灯回收的磷化钇钇氧化euro（YOX）的影响，论证并讨论分配程序分配在替代点（APOS）中的应用。

方法

从多功能回收过程开始，通过以下方式应用APOS：（1）识别前台子系统的产品，（2）识别回收废物的来源，（3）定义生产系统的边界，以及（4）应用经济分配。

结果与讨论

在大多数影响类别中，回收的YOX造成的影响似乎要比初级YOX造成的影响低。循环使用的YOX的最大影响因素是与荧光灯的初级生产有关的影响，例如在灯管中使用汞。即使这可能是违反直觉的（因为这些影响似乎与YOX无关），这些结果仍提供了有关报废荧光灯的稀土元素（REE）的供应路线是否“未来可靠”的有用信息，有关由于产品供应链上游环境影响而带来的潜在（供应）风险的信息。

结论

在稀土元素的报废回收中证明了APOS的应用。APOS向用户提供有关产品价值链上游环境影响的再生REE信息。这可以告知公司运营的可持续性，即，材料的未来使用或生产是否会由于（减少法规）环境影响而受到损害。