초록 ▼

본 연구에서는 국내 폐플라스틱의 발생 및 재활용현황, 재활용시설 등에 대한 현장조사를 실시하고 이를 바탕으로 재활용방법별 물질흐름과 비용, 환경부하를 분석하여 주요 환경영향인자를 규명하였음. 전과정평가 결과에 의하면, 재활용방법별 자체 공정부하측면에서는 열적재활용(TR)에 의한 환경영향이 가장 크게 나타났고, 다음으로 물질재활용(MR), 화학적재활용(CR) 순이었으며 MR과 CR의 공정부하량의 차이는 크지 않았음. 재활용공정을 통해 생산된 제품(재생원료, 연료유, 스팀)에 의한 환경영향의 회피효과를 고려할 경우 MR이 가장 우수한

본 연구에서는 국내 폐플라스틱의 발생 및 재활용현황, 재활용시설 등에 대한 현장조사를 실시하고 이를 바탕으로 재활용방법별 물질흐름과 비용, 환경부하를 분석하여 주요 환경영향인자를 규명하였음. 전과정평가 결과에 의하면, 재활용방법별 자체 공정부하측면에서는 열적재활용(TR)에 의한 환경영향이 가장 크게 나타났고, 다음으로 물질재활용(MR), 화학적재활용(CR) 순이었으며 MR과 CR의 공정부하량의 차이는 크지 않았음. 재활용공정을 통해 생산된 제품(재생원료, 연료유, 스팀)에 의한 환경영향의 회피효과를 고려할 경우 MR이 가장 우수한 것으로 조사됨. 플라스틱 제품(농촌폐비닐, PSP/ESP 포장재)에 대한 전과정평가 결과도 MR이 환경적으로 가장 우수하게 나타났음. CR은 현재 단순소각되고 있는 잉여가스를 연료화하고 가동율을 높이면, TR은 회수열로 생산된 스팀의 외부공급율을 높일 경우 환경성, 경제성 모두 개선이 가능한 것으로 나타났음. 또한, 본 연구에서 개발한 환경성/경제성 통합지수를 활용하면 재활용 공정별 운전조건 및 환경가중치의 변화시 탄력적인 의사결정이 가능함. 본 연구결과 예상한대로 MR이 가장 우수한 재활용방법으로 제시되었으나, 이는 폐플라스틱의 품질이 좋은 경우에만 해당되며 모든 폐플라스틱에 MR을 적용하기 어려운 실정임 따라서, 혼합폐플라스틱의 경우 향후 PVC 선별기술의 개발 및 현장적용을 통하여 유화, 고로환원제, 제철연료화, 가스화, 시멘트소성원연료 및 보일러 에너지원 등으로 확대 이용이 가능할 것임.

Abstract ▼

Plastic waste is regarded as one of the most important environmental problems to be solved in Korea. Plastics recycling has become an established national industry in Korea. However, it is still in its infant stage and experiences growing pains. Recently, the various recycling technologies are used

Plastic waste is regarded as one of the most important environmental problems to be solved in Korea. Plastics recycling has become an established national industry in Korea. However, it is still in its infant stage and experiences growing pains. Recently, the various recycling technologies are used such as material, chemical and/or thermal recycling, but only material recycling is widely practiced in Korea due to the lack of separation and/or recycling technologies and economical reasons. In the present work, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies have been carried out in order to assess and identify the key environmental issues related to the recycling of waste plastics. The LCA results for different recycling methods of waste plastics, such as material recycling (MR), chemical recycling (CR) and thermal recycling (TR) are compared. Since the recycling processes of waste plastics have the feature of multi-input process, the contribution of each input parameter to the total impacts are allocated by the principle of physical-chemical causalities. The major results obtained from the present work are summarized as follows:
- In terms of the potential environmental impacts associated with the recycling process itself, TR is the poorest and CR is slightly better than MR. However, when the environmental impacts which can be avoided by the products of the recycling method is considered, MR is better and the effect of impact removal is not significant in TR since the efficiency of energy recovery is very low.
- In the present work, LCA studies on the plastic waste products, such as agricultural film, electric appliances and PSP/EPS mixed plastics from packaging are also conducted to analyze and compare different recycling methods.
- In the case of the material recycling for the agricultural film, significant amounts of energy and water are used for pre-treatment stages and therefore, in order to improve the productivity of MR method, an efficient sorting and/or separation process is of critical importance. The enhancement of recycling service for the agricultural film by expanding the recycling methods is not merely an environmental issue but involves a number of important aspects of regional, social and political decision-making processes.
- As a result of LCA studies on the recycling plant for electric appliances, the environmental impact for recycling of refrigerator is bigger than that of the washing machine on the basis of functional unit, while the result is reversed on the weight basis. Total amounts of recycled materials are analyzed and improvement strategies for recycling are proposed to reduce the incineration of mixed plastic wastes.
- Economic analysis by using the cost-benefit analysis technique is also carried out to compare different recycling methods. The overall results show that MR is more economical in comparison to CR and TR. However, negative values are obtained in economic analysis, indicating none of the these recycling methods for waste plastics is not economically beneficial. This may be due to the exclusion of the costs for social and economic benefits for environmental improvement obtained from the recycling.
- In the present work, an integrated method of environmental impact and economic analysis is developed by considering normalization and weighting processes. The fact that the application of different normalization references and weighting schemes may result in very different conclusions must not be dismissed lightly.
- As a result of environmental impact and economic analysis for different recycling processes, improvements can be made by efficient utilization of recovered heat energy in the case of thermal recycling (i.e. incineration). In the case of CR process, improvements can be done by increasing the rate of operation (current ratio ∼33%) and capacity of facility.
- In addition, improvements must be made with respect to enhancing the reliability of the results pertaining to the differences in data quality and system boundaries in order to draw more correct conclusions in the future. More specifically, the data quality and system boundaries used during the application of LCA to each recycling methods and the issues of different quality and other characteristics of waste plastics must be addressed.
- This study will be continued in the future and will focus on developing environmentally sound recycling technologies to produce economical raw materials and energy from waste plastics with the goal of achieving environmental conservation and resource acquisition for global sustainable development.
- As a result of this work, LCI databases for the recycling of waste plastics have been constructed and they are now available for the future LCA studies, such as automobile dismantling processes, recycling of discarded PC and mobile phones, waste batteries, evaluation on the integrated waste management system, etc.

목차 Contents

• 제 1 장 연구개발과제의 개요...26
• 1. 연구개발의 필요성...26
• 2. 연구개발 목표...28
• 제 2 장 국내ㆍ외 관련분야 기술개발현황...29
• 1. 폐플라스틱 발생 및 처리 현황...29
• 2. 폐플라스틱의 재활용 및 처리 방법...32
• 3. LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) 연구사례...39
• 제 3 장 연구개발 수행 내용 및 결과...50
• 1. 전과정평가(Life Cycle Assessment)...50
• 2. 경제성평가(Economic Assessment)...58
• 3. 폐플라스틱 처리ㆍ처분시스템 분석...66
• 4. 혼합폐플라스틱 재질별 재활용 및 처리방법별 환경성평가...74
• 5. 폐 가전제품 재활용(MR)공정 환경성평가...109
• 6. 폐EPS/PSP 재활용 및 처리방법별 환경성평가...120
• 7. 폐비닐 재활용 및 처리방법별 환경성평가...143
• 8. 경제성평가...158
• 9. 환경성ㆍ경제성 통합...171
• 10. 최적자원화전략 수립...177
• 11. 종합결론...180
• 제 4 장 연구개발목표 달성도 및 대외기여도...182
• 1. 연구개발목표의 달성도...182
• 2. 대외기여도...183
• 제 5 장 연구개발결과의 활용계획...186
• 제 6 장 연구개발과정에서 수집한 해외과학기술정보...188
• 1. 스웨덴...188
• 2. 일본...189
• 3. 미국...191
• 4. 독일...192
• 제 7 장 참고문헌...194