Life Cycle Assessment of an Innovative Process for PVC Cables Waste Recycling

Cable recycling is an important source of high-grade secondary copper. Unfortunately, for every kg of copper produced, the cable recycling process also creates some 2 kg of residue: a complex mixture of PVC insulation, ill-liberated cable parts, very fine copper wire and a minor amount of other materials. This paper investigates two scenarios for this residue in terms of Life Cycle Assessment: land filling versus an innovative process that recycles over 90 mass% of the residue by means of a precise separation on density into a clean PVC fraction and a fine copper product. In order to compare the two scenarios and account for the quality issue of recycled materials, the land filling option is extended with the production of copper and PVC from primary resources, in quantities that represent the same market value as the recycled materials in the recycling scenario. The result of the analysis indicates that, despite this conservative approach, the recycling scenario reduces the relevant impacts by a factor of ten with respect to land filling.