建立循環型社會之研究

Abstract

人口增加以及物質化水準的不斷提升，造成全球環境惡化，也是環境不永續主要原因之一。人口與環境關係可以用Master equation表達，即環境影響＝人口×每人GDP ×每單位GDP對環境的影響，亦即環境影響與人口增加有正相關；在地球存在46億餘年中，人類存在不超過370萬年，而人類人口成長過程，可以發現，農業社會人類進入農耕的時代迄今也超過一萬年，在農耕時代，地球環境雖然已經開始惡化，但地球環境快速惡化則是在工業革命以後。 未來50年內，全球的經濟成長預估可能增加5倍，人口增加50%，依此推論，全球資源消費將增加近3倍，全球物質耗用速度快到令人無法想像，如何讓能資源循環再利用，減緩耗盡速度，建立自給自足式的循環型社會，是永續發展最重要課題之一，否則人類將耗盡地球所有可以利用資源，並且不斷產生毒物累積到地球環境中，這些不永續行為，將讓整個地球走向毀滅之路，易言之，我們必須揚棄過去拋棄型社會 (Throw-away Society) 走入循環型社會(Recycling-oriented Society)，這也是邁向永續發展過程中一條必須走的道路。 日本循環型社會涵括：資源生產效率、物質循環利用率及垃圾最終處分量量等三大課題，面向相當廣泛；本論文以去物質化與去毒化探討建立循環型社會課題。在去物質化方面，首先以宜蘭頭城鎮為例，採用CO2產生效率，建立農業、漁業等產業評估去物質化的環境效率。宜蘭頭城鎮是一典型的農業鄉鎮，農業（漁業）人口超過總人口一半，區域並無大型污染性工業，工廠多屬加工型產業，它又是台灣地區少數幾個資源回收工作做得較好的鄉鎮。本研究結果發現：頭城鎮2002年二氧化碳排放量以電力最多(76.7%)、移動車輛(15.9%)，工業（6.9%），至於農業、漁業及畜牧所產生二氧化碳則只佔0.5%。農業對環境衝擊顯然是比較小的。 去物質化另一個重點是建立一個封閉的物質流迴路(Closing the Loop on Materials Flows)，而資源回收再利用問題就是最重要工作，本研究針對台灣近20年垃圾成長以及推動垃圾資源回收進行分析，並選擇具有代表性之產業筆記型電腦回收進行生命週評估 (LCA)及益本分析。台灣垃圾問題與世界各國相非常類似，自1997年以後，台灣政府推動延長生產者責任制度，結合清潔隊積極介入垃圾減量後，台灣垃圾量開始減少，而減量幅度高達30%，平均每人每天垃圾量已經降至0.82公斤，與美國、OECD、英國、日本、荷蘭、香港、新加坡等國家相比較，台灣垃圾減量成效相當顯著。 在筆記型電腦回收方面，經過生命週期評估發現，筆記型電腦回收愈多環境衝擊愈大，因為回收所投入的人力物力所消耗的資源、對生態環境的影響以及間接對人體健康的影響，大於回收所減少的環境衝擊，這種結果與一般大眾預期回收率越高越好的認知有衝突，究其原因主要在於重量百分比低而不可回收的控制單元 (主機板、CPU等)對環境的衝擊最大，而可回收部分所減少的環境衝擊，不足抵扣回收活動所增加的環境衝擊。因此只強調回收率並不重要，提升回收相關技術（控制單元能有效的回收其組成成分）以及製程的改善（一個減少耗能、減低污染的電腦製程），才能真正降低環境衝擊，也才能使回收的動作真正發揮物質循環的效用。此外，在全球化浪潮中，台灣也無法置身事外，在過去，台灣為全球代工製造中心之一，以筆記型電腦為例，全球超過一半以上的出貨量在台灣組裝，從上述LCA評估可以發現，筆記型電腦對環衝擊最嚴重部份是控制單元，這一部分都是在國外生產，究竟其在生產時使用何種有害環境的物質，台灣廠商並無法完全掌握，另外，這些銷往國外的筆記型電腦回收之後，其物料也很難回到台灣，因此如何推動為環境而設計 ( Design for Environmental)，將是最比回收廢電腦工作更為迫切，而筆記型電腦回收研究也說明了去毒化的重要性。 在都市去毒方面，則應用結構方程式，建立垃圾資源回收、廚餘回收等行為與都市廢棄物焚化廠煙道中焚化戴奧辛平均排放濃度間之因果關係，建立循環型社會去毒化評估模式，研究結果發現，廚餘回收工作對於去毒化最有貢獻，而ＰＶＣ塑膠回收工作由於目前強制回收項目仍未徹底，造成塑膠回收與去戴奧辛關係並未明顯。針對鎘進行物質流分析，目前台灣廢棄物處理若仍採用焚化為主政策，並不符合永續發展中強調去物質化與去毒兩大原則，而落實鎳鎘電池及塑膠回收工作，同時推動限用塑膠及鎳鎘電池政策，從垃圾源頭減少鎘使用，應是推動焚化政策時的首要工作。 在社會制度面，從台灣實施延長生產者責任制度與回收制度發現，在去物質化方面已經有很好的績效，但在去毒化方面則仍有很大的改善空間，在邁向循環型社會，未來必須投入更多的清潔生產、環境化設計以及去毒化的研發課題，本研究建議，政府應仿效在三十年前成立工研院模式，由政府將收自生產者的回收處理費用成立類似工研院之公財團法人基金，除了一部分繼續目前的資源回收工作外，大部分則投入研發工作，如此才能解決建立循環型社會所需要的技術，而其研發成果，也才能回饋業者，改善製程，雙方互蒙其利，另一方面，這樣的公財團法人，也能受到立法院監督，但卻仍能有效發揮其財團法人特性，每年固定經費投入研發工作，創造台灣綠色矽島。

The increase of population and the rapid consumption of material have caused the global environment to worsen and become unsustainable. The relationship between population and environment can be represented by the master equation: Environment Impact = Population × GDP per capita × Effect on environment per GDP. Effect on environment is directly proportional to the population growth. In the 4.7 billion years of earth history, human has only been existing for less than 3.7 million years. It is also clear that although the environment has worsened as population grew and as human stepped into the agricultural era, the process has only started to worsen rapidly after the industrial revolution. In the next 50 years, global economy is estimated to grow by five times while the population is expected to grow by 50% of what it is today. It is expected that the consumption of global resources will almost triple. It is unimaginable how fast the world is using up its material. Recycling our resources, and decreasing the consumption rate of such resources, are the very important elements to establish a self-supply and self-sufficient recycling-oriented society. Or non-sustainable human behaviour will lead the earth to its destruction by constantly putting toxic in it. In another words, we must say goodbye to the throw-away society and take the path to the recycling-oriented society in order to achieve a sustainable development. Three major issues of building a recycling-oriented society are resources production efficiency, product recycling rate, and garbage disposal rate. These issues cover quite a general area. This paper will discuss a recycling-oriented society in the areas of dematerialization and detoxification. With dematerialization, this paper will use an example which looks at the CO2 production rate in the town of Toucheng in the ILan prefecture to examine the effect of agricultural and fishing industries on the environment. Toucheng is a typical agricultural town, with more than 50% of the population work being in the agricultural or fishing industry. The region does not have heavy industries generating air pollution as most of the factories are in the processing industry. Toucheng is one of the few towns in Taiwan that has a good resources recycling in place. This study shows that in 2002, the CO2 output in Toucheng was mainly from electric power (76.7%), motor vehicles (15.9%), and household gas (6.9%). CO2 output from agricultural, fishing and livestock industries was only 0.5%. Clearly, impact on the environment from agricultural industries is comparatively lower. The other main point with dematerialisation is closing the loop on material flows, and the most important job of which is resources recycling. This study describes and evaluates the municipal solid waste management system in Taiwan, and uses life cycle analysis (LCA) and cost benefit analysis on notebook manufacturing. The problem with the municipal solid waste (MSW) in Taiwan is very similar to the rest of the world. Since 1997, the Taiwanese government has increased the responsibilities from manufacturers as well as establishing cleaning services to promote waste minimization. As a result, amount of waste reduced by 30% while MSW output per person dropped to 0.82 kilograms. When compared with USA, OECD, Britain, Japan, Holland, Hong Kong and Singapore, Taiwan’s achievement on waste minimization was outstanding. With regards to notebook recycling, results from life cycle analysis have shown that recycling brought upon more harm to the environment. Contrary to public beliefs, damage to the environment and human health associated with the resources required for notebook recycling outweighs the benefit of recycling. This is due to the fact that relatively light-weighted control units in motherboards and CPUs are non-recyclable but yet have the most impact on the environment. Hence, effective recycling is not only about how much is being recycled but about improving recycling technology to recycle components of control units, as well as improving processes to reduce energy consumption to minimise impact on the environment, and hence achieve true material recycling. Furthermore, due to globalization and the fact that in the past Taiwan was one of the major manufacturing outsourcing center in the world, more than 50% of the notebooks were assembled in Taiwan. As previously pointed out by the life cycle analysis, control units have the most impact on the environment out of all notebook parts. However, as control units were produced overseas, Taiwanese manufacturers had no insight knowledge on what harmful materials were used to produce the control units. In addition, as notebooks were exported to overseas and recycled overseas, hardly any materials came back to Taiwan. Therefore, achieving environmental friendly design is far more important than the subsequent recycling of the notebooks. This study on notebooks recycling also explains the importance of detoxification. This study applies structural equation to establish the relationship between MSW/Food Waste recycling and average concentration of Dioxin output from refuse incineration plants to build a detoxification evaluation model of a recycling oriented society. This study shows that detoxification recycling contributes the most in detoxification while the relationship between PVC plastic recycling and decrease in Dioxin output from incineration is not evident due to lack of reinforcing recycling PVC plastic. Material flow analysis on the heavy metal Cadmium shows that refuse incineration policy does not satisfy the two principles of sustainable growth, which are dematerialization and detoxification. The most important policy with MSW incineration should be to reduce the use of Cadmium by restricting the use as well as promoting the recycling of plastics and Nickel-Cadmium batteries. Regulations imposed by Taiwanese government on recycling and the increase of responsibilities by the manufacturers have achieved great results for dematerialization but still leaving room for improvement in areas of detoxification. To step into a recycling oriented society, more research is needed for environment friendly designs and detoxification are also required in the future. The government should adapt the model that was used to establish the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) 30 years ago and could establish a public trust fund from the recycling fees paid by the manufacturers. It could allocate part of the fund to continue resource recycling and use the majority of the fund in research and development to establish the technology required for setting up a recycling oriented society. This is beneficial to both parties for the manufacturers by helping them to improve their manufacturing processes and on the other hand, the public trust fund can be supervised by the Legislative Yuan of the government but still function as a trust. There should be regular contributions into the trust fund and funds should be allocated to research and development yearly with the aim to build Taiwan into a green silicon island.