How To Recycle Fluorescent Light Tubes?

1. The hazards of waste fluorescent lights

Fluorescent lights save electricity and energy, and their luminous efficiency is 7-10 times that of incandescent lights, so they have been widely used.

However, it also brings the problem of mercury pollution.

Fluorescent light is a kind of gas discharge light. Mercury exists as a gas discharge medium in the light tube, and the fluorescent light needs to maintain the necessary free mercury vapor pressure (0.67-1.33Pa) during operation to ensure that mercury is in contact with glass and phosphors. and chemical bonding between electrodes.

The boiling point of mercury is very low, and it can be evaporated at room temperature. After the waste fluorescent light is broken, it will immediately emit mercury vapor to the surrounding area, which can instantly make the mercury concentration in the surrounding air reach 10-20 mg/m3, while the mercury concentration stipulated by the state. The maximum allowable concentration in air is 0.01 mg/m3.

Humans can be killed by inhaling 2.5 grams of mercury vapor at a time.

A 36mm thick tube diameter amaranth light contains 25-45 mg of mercury, a 26mm thin tube diameter fluorescent light contains 20 mg of mercury, and a 10mm tube diameter contains 20 mg of mercury. Compact fluorescent lights contain 10 mg of mercury.

According to the statistics of the China Lighting Association, the annual output of fluorescent lights in my country is about 800 million, the number of fluorescent lights consumed each year is more than 400 million, and the amount of mercury used is about 12 tons.

When the waste fluorescent lights are not treated or disposed of improperly, the harmful mercury will enter the human body through the skin, breathing or food, which will cause great harm to human health.

According to a survey by American scientists, the mercury content in the earth’s atmosphere has doubled compared to 100 years ago.

There are both natural and man-made sources of mercury in the air.

Natural causes such as weathering of mercury-containing ores, man-made causes include exhaust emissions from coal-fired power plants, fluorescent lights, mercury thermometers, and mercury-containing batteries in household waste.

2. Current status of foreign fluorescent light recycling

Foreign countries adopt a combination of management and technical means for the recycling and disposal of fluorescent lights:

In terms of management, developed countries have adopted legislation, administrative and economic education and other means to improve the quality and awareness of their citizens and promote the effective implementation of policies.

The Swedish government has issued the “Law on the Responsibility of Manufacturers of Electrical and Electronic Products”, “Regulations and Guiding Principles for the Pretreatment of Waste Electrical Appliances and Electronic Waste”, and the “Law on the Disposal of Wasted Electrical and Electronic Appliances”; the main basis for recycling used electrical and electronic appliances in Germany is the “Circular Economy Law” and “Measures for Disposal of Waste and Used Equipment in the Information Industry”.

The European Union issued the “Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive” in 2003.

(2002/96/EC) and the Guidelines on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment

The Directive (2002/95/EC) are two mandatory technical regulations.

Included in scrap management

Products include “lighting equipment (fluorescent lights, high pressure and low pressure sodium lights, other lighting and special

Light emission or control equipment and other 6 products)”, and make specific provisions.

(1) Product design

It is stipulated that the manufacturer of electrical and electronic equipment should consider the dismantling and refurbishment of the whole machine, its components and materials when the product is scrapped in the product design stage, so as to be reused and recycled.

Producers need to use special design methods or processing procedures to achieve this purpose when necessary.

(2) Classified collection

EU member states and producers of electrical and electronic equipment are required to establish a special system so that users can return waste electrical and electronic equipment free of charge, or sellers are responsible for returning waste products one-to-one when selling new products.

At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that these recovered scrapped electrical and electronic equipment are promptly sent to the specified authorized processing institutions for processing.

(3) Processing

It is stipulated that the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment includes “recycling” and “disposal”.

“Recycling” refers to the reuse or recycling of the whole machine or its components and materials, including the recycling of energy. By improving the recovery rate of the end-of-life equipment, the generation of waste can be reduced as much as possible.

“Disposal” refers to the disposal of unrecyclable waste by stacking, landfill, incineration, etc.

In accordance with the “Basic Law for Building a Recycling Society” and the related “Resource Effective Utilization Promotion Law”, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan officially listed waste fluorescent tubes as the target of recycling products in July 2001, and implemented an assessment of the recycling rate, thereby promoting All enterprises actively develop recycling technology and increase processing capacity.

In terms of technology, the treatment technologies of foreign waste lights mainly include “direct crushing and separation” and “cut-end purge separation”.

The processing flow of the “direct crushing and separation” process is as follows: first, the whole light tube is crushed, washed and dried to recover the mixture of mercury and glass tube, then the crude mercury is recovered by roasting, evaporation and condensation, and then purified by the mercury production device for use in fluorescent lights Mercury, recover 10~20 mg per light.

The process is characterized by compact structure, small footprint and low investment, but the phosphor is difficult to reuse.

The “cut-end purge separation” process is to first cut off both ends of the light tube, blow in high-pressure air to blow out the mercury-containing phosphors and collect them, and then recover the mercury through a vacuum heater. The purity of the generated mercury is 99.9%. The technical feature is that the recyclable rarefied phosphor can be effectively

Classified collection, but larger investment.

3. Status of Fluorescent light Recycling in China

In 1995, my country formulated and promulgated the “People’s Republic of China Solid Waste Pollution of the Environment” Prevention and Control Law, followed by the promulgation and implementation of the National List of Hazardous Wastes and the Hazardous Wastes Identification Standards”, which formed the basis for the management of hazardous solid waste in my country, and later also targeted lighting products.

Special activities such as “Green Lighting Project” were carried out for product promotion.

According to the “National Hazardous Waste and Medical Waste Disposal Facility Construction Plan”: National Plan Build 31 comprehensive hazardous waste disposal centers with complete functions, and add new hazardous waste disposal centers

Capacity 2.82 million tons/year.

The company has newly renovated and expanded the comprehensive utilization and disposal capacity of 3.5 million tons per year, all the hazardous wastes generated in the year, and gradually digested the hazardous wastes stored over the years.

As “hazardous solid waste”, waste fluorescent lights are mainly incinerated together with “hazardous solid waste” such as waste batteries, waste household appliances and even medical waste.

The main reason is that the number of waste fluorescent tubes collected cannot meet the requirements of individual treatment.

4. Conclusion

In view of the current situation of the use and recycling of fluorescent lights in my country and the serious form of potential pollution, it is imperative we should urgently do the following work:

(1) Strengthen publicity and update concepts

Increase publicity and education. Through modern media such as radio and television, the Internet, and publicity Spread materials, textbooks and other methods to widely publicize the harm of waste fluorescent tubes to the environment and human health, as well as the importance of recycling.

Improve the national awareness of environmental protection and self-protection, so as to consciously support and participate in recycling work, and develop the good habit of not throwing away waste fluorescent lights.

In addition, light manufacturers should update their concepts and take the initiative to send waste fluorescent lights to centralized. It should not be “sold” to other companies that produce glass blood for a small profit.

This should be coordinated with economic control measures.

(2) Improve the policy system and supervision means

In view of the particularity of the storage, transportation and disposal requirements of waste fluorescent lights, it is necessary to strengthen the management of mercury-containing lights Supervision and management of the whole process of pipe flow direction and disposal.

First of all, the policy and system should be improved in time. On the basis of implementing my country’s “Solid Waste Environmental Pollution Prevention and Control Law”, the implementation rules or relevant special regulations for the safe disposal of mercury-containing lights should be established as soon as possible, so that the recycling and safe disposal of discarded mercury-containing lights It has the basis and operability of legal management, which is helpful for the supervision and management of the collection and treatment of scrapped mercury-containing lights.

Second, it is necessary to establish as soon as possible a standard system for collecting sewage charges for enterprises that generate scrapped mercury-containing lights, fill the gaps in the fees and penalties for this type of solid waste, and use economic leverage to promote the safe and centralized treatment of mercury-containing lights.

Third, build a whole-process supervision procedure for the flow of discarded mercury-containing lights, and change unorganized free trade into organized centralized recycling.

Fourth, establish incentives and support policies to help centralize the efficient operation of enterprises.

(3) Pay attention to the identification and control of environmental factors in products

Fluorescent tube manufacturers should introduce the ISO14001 concept in the design stage, identify the existing or potential environmental factors in the whole process of the sub-product life cycle, and start from the design and production stage.

In order to achieve the most effective pollution prevention, take full account of control measures.

(4) Strengthen the research and development of processing technology suitable for the actual situation

At present, my country has not yet formed a waste fluorescent light treatment and disposal technology suitable for the actual situation.

Combining the characteristics of production, use and recycling in my country, we should take the road of combining imported technology with digestion and absorption.

It is of great significance for my country to basically eliminate the hidden danger of pollution in this field.