폐금속자원 재활용 촉진을 위한 제도,기술적 지원방안 -폐전자제품을 중심으로- = Study on Institutional and Technical Measures to Promote Recycling of Metals from Waste Electric and Electronic Equipments

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As the price of raw materials increase and the issue of resource depletion worsens, interest in resource circulation has been rising. In particular, countries are putting forth their efforts to carry out the waste recycling policy so as to extract resources out of discarded materials. Korea is one of countries at the top of the list of those which consume large amount of metal in the world, though it lacks mineral resources and is heavily dependent on imports. Therefore, more support is necessary to develop technologies in order to promote recycling of metal. Although metals are included in waste electric and electronic products, waste metals have a economic value, recycling of metal is currently insufficient, leading to resource waste. The main object of this study is to review the current status of collecting, retrieving and processing of waste electronics which were generated as urban solid waste; to understand the value of metals of waste electronics, and to recognize technological status of retrieving scrap metals and economic value. In particular, this study aims to suggest measures to effectively increase scrap metals into resource by recognizing the process of re-processing waste electronics. In so doing, the study first examines the metal recycling policy of EU, the U.S, Japan, China and compares with trend of the domestic metal recycling policy. Second the study also examines the status of metal recycling of waste electronics and of related collecting, recycling and processing companies. The number of waste electronics in both domestic and developed countries is increasing exponentially, especially rapidly that of the latter. To this end, the companies which collect and recycle waste electronics are examined through a field study of intermediate processing companies and final treatment companies. Third, the study examines the economic value of major metals from waste electronics and retrieving?recycling technology of waste metal resources. The results show that the economic value of waste metals turned out to be about 399.4 billion Korean Won per year for the amount collected and 5117.4 billion Korean Won for the amount of possessed in the national households. The recycling and retrieving technology of metal resources is being developed by governmental research institutions, but the level of recycling technology of waste scrap is about 80% but retrieving and recycling technology of metal from waste electronics is only about 40~50% compared to that of the developed countries. Fourth, technical and institutional measures are suggested to promote metal recycling of waste electronics. Technical suggestions include setting directions of technological development at expanding recycling and comprehensive technology; enhancing information provision vis-a-vis technology trend analysis through analyzing patent; establishing the international and domestic network of waste trade and exchange to stabilize raw material supply and demand. Institutional measures to promote recycling of metals from waste electronics are summarized as follows: It is necessary to improve emission, collection and delivering system of waste electronics from household nationwide in order to avoid loss of waste metal resources which have potential value. It is important to improve management system of recycling business which is based on small and individual business; to establish proper recycling system of waste electric and electronic equipments generated from work-place. It is also necessary to revise current EPR policy and to enhance recycling infrastructure to treat small-size waste electronics.