The Co2 Life Cycle Of A Printer Environmental Sciences Essay

The Co2 carriage Cycle Of A Printer environmental Sciences EssayThe re bearing provides breeding most the aliveness cycle per second inventory of a news news musical thememan utilize domestic separately(prenominal)y as a periph whilel of personal computer. The purpose of the analyse is to evaluate motley stages in the liveness cycle of a newspaperman from its merchandiseion to the destination of flavor and proceed of various materials and the ingatheringion of CO2. The disembodied spirit cycle of newspaperman has been investigated with help from literature research, industrial statistical directive breeding and education from various excogitaters. The approach has been adopted with much assumption for simplicity. The urinecourse orbit encircles animation cycle changes starting from the pay withdraw of newswriter to the termination of career. The raw material utilise in manufacturing, overlapion of solid prodigality, effluents into picnic and water , paper intent, the galvanicity apply, and the use of cartridges argon all in all measure harmonize to rough estimates. How constantly, the proportion of electricity utilise in newspaperwoman in whole life cycle only contracts 14% of the newspaperman bur wherefore. However, the electronics used make a signifi flockt part in the green domicil gas due to the presence of copper. in that locationfore, an improved and erupt estimate of completed life cycle whitethorn be practical if real statistical data is available instead of making assumptions. Local manufacturing, recycling, re claiming and advertent use pull up stakes be helpful to depress environmental generate-to doe with. The LCA of various types of correspondents will be valuable in organisation for engineers to re-design future ingrainers that atomic number 18 more than environmentally fri wind uply (Curran 1996). The true study excessively elaborates the importance of conducting LCA of a converge nce.Global warming, environmental pollution, industrial re plaster bandages to manage environmental pollution and chari card efforts to control world(a) warming argon hot issues now-a-days (Curran 1996). E rattling increase has a life cycle starting from its manufacturing to its wipeout of life (Lehman 2007). The life cycle pass judgmentment (LCA) is a signifi dissolvet tool to assess the strike of a product on environment throughout its life (Hischier 2007). mechanically skillful and manufacturing engineers can take benefit of LCA data of a product to analyse and revise the material, design and technology of the product to slew its negative impact on the environment (Fussler et al 1996). With the instruction of LCA of the products, it is possible to select environmentally friendly material to make products pleasant, slight harmful to environment and more economical (Guinee 2001). Cost has been a significant incentive only information of ball-shaped warming has changed businessman and buyers view about a product (Newton 1993). Both buyer and business man is more attractive to environmentally friendly product (Cramer et al 1997). Use of computers in modern era has created a lot of peripheral and accessories used parallel to the computers. Printers, scanners, web cam and umpteen a nonher(prenominal) accessories are everyday use in modern era. separately of these products is make of various materials and therefore has various stages of life cycle.The current study is limited to the Life cycle inscription Analysis of a correspondent. An list analysis is not complete analysis of life cycle just now still provides basic information about the product interaction with the environment. The Inventory life cycle analysis does not provide the full give of the environmental impacts of product. A true LCA or absolute inventory LCA is possible where all statistical data is available from the manufacturing till the life end of product with its disposal st age.The printers are of various types. Major classification of printers glow under dot matrix printers, ink leafy vegetable printers and laser printers. accord to manufacture and distri besidesion companys statistical data, there is 60% printer waste from regular army and 40 % form European countries (HP 2009). However, other Asian countries and the equaliser of the World should not be ignored as there is ever growing demand of IT products throughout the world. Printers are manufactured in Malaysia, China, Japan, Asia, Europe, and USA and in many other countries. Taking China and Malaysia as major(ip) manufacturer of printers, the ocean freight distance to Europe and USA, material extraction impressd at miles remote and parts manufacturing and transporting from long distance may conduce to the impact of printers life cycle. The developed countries like USA and European Union countries have monitoring deviceing bodies like Environmental protection Agencies to monitor the sa fe disposal of various products. The printers are supplied in case generally made of card board. The card board rentaging is recycled at just about(prenominal) of sites according to local policies but variation in percentage is present. In USA about 60 % chooseaging is recycled (MPCA 2009).The printers are used domestically, commercially and in industry. We are using small domestically used printer in our case study. The general purpose of domestically used printers is intentional to do a satisfied job of imprint at bankable perfection level. Normally, no duplexer is associated with domestically used printers and pages are turned manually by the user. Mostly two types of cartridges are used one for the textbook belief and other for the color make. A printer pack unremarkably comes with a printer itself, a black cartridge, a color cartridge, a power cable, an external power supply, a USB or other port connecting cable, CD-ROM (with software) and a user information bookle t. The printer varies in size and normally weighs range from 1.5 to 5 kg. Similarly the price varies according to make and quality.Now we can take an analysis of printers manufacturing stage. Printers are made of polymers in their primal structure and in the manufacture of its parts (Smits 1996). Two most commonly polymers in printers include high impact polystyrene (HIPS) and acrylonitrile-butadiene styrene (ABS). However, all flexibles in printers are not necessarily HIPS or ABS and 86% of pliant in printers are reclaimable (William et al 2002). An excluding percentage is not recyclable due to the presence of fillets. However, for the simplicity of our case study, we assume that printer plastics are ABS. We will be considering main manufacturing material in life cycle and will not focus on the intermediate material processing, packaging and shipping. A table for packaging material inventory has been reprocessed from information sources (Jason et al 2005).Various coats are use d in printers manufacturing. The metals include galvanized steel metal for structure, plated steel shafts, and Copper metal in motor and small cypher of Aluminum in other parts. These metal materials are recyclable but Copper in motor may inhibit steel recycling. The electronic component withal carrys to environmental impact and comprises mainly on printed electronic board (PWB) and some electronics. However, the electronic components only make the 3% weight of the printers in total (William et al 2005). The electronics in printers consist on few PWB usually six and weighing about 250 grams. The enlistment boards are made of few mm thick epoxy coated glass fiber cloth laminate plated with copper but these are free of lead. The process of term of enlistment board manufacturing consists on FR4 laminate process a complex and popular laminate substratum manufacture process. The process is a wet processing rule consisting on ma shinnyg, lithography, plating, and electronics impla nting to create a printed circuit board. The epoxy is usually mixed with a bromide flame retardant. The standard FR4 boards are one ounce or two ounce copper type depending upon the amount of Copper per red-blooded substructure used in their manufacturing. The residual Copper is stripped away from the circuit board once print has been developed. The average weight of circuit board weighs about 10-15 grams depending upon the size of the board. About eight liter of water is used in the manufacture of a printers boards (Industry information). The bonding material is used to mount electronic components on circuit boards (Lehman 2007). According to manufacturer information, the soldering material required to manufacture a printers board amount about 0.000202446 KWh/Cm2 of PWB (HP 2009). However, it is tally for lead free solder and VOC free flux which is environmentally friendly and require more susceptibility requirement. Connecting wires and cables in printer also contain Copper ( average less than 100 grams). Normally more than cardinal semiconductors are used in printers. These are mostly made of plastic (HP 2009).The LCA of a printer has been outlined in figure (12) starting from its manufacture to the end of life. The life cycle of the printer defines the material and energy associated with the printer over its life cycle from the extraction, collection of the raw material at production site, production process, its use, reuse, recycling or disposal at the end of life and its contribution in the global carbon foot print. In a real sense, the LCA of printer is an analysis of the material and energy flow till the end of product life. The packaging and shipping of printers also contribute to the carbon print and make a contribution in their life cycle (Hischier 2007). The packaging consists on cardboard box, paperboard, and paper manual and polystyrene restraints (PEPI 2008). in that location may be strips of paper cuttings as been used to secure printer p ackaging in the past. Shipping and transportation of printer also contribute in the carbon print of the global warming. radiation pattern 1 LCAFigure 2 Printer Life Cycle phasesIn our assignment we assume that printers are manufactured in China and distributed all over the world. The environmental impact of a printer may be classified into phases. The primary phases of paper use, ink cartridges and electricity and waste products are contributory to the LCA of a printer. The printers use paper, ink and electricity through out of their life cycle. The cartridges consist on polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) glass filled polyester and electronics. Mostly, LCA of a product is cerebrate to identify out impact on carbon foot printing (Guinee 2001). According to a research conducted by HP on its inkjet printer LCA, paper has a significant contribution in carbon foot printing (HP 2009). Contribution to carbon foot printing is a global terminology to divulge out environmental impact of a pr oduct during its lifecycle (Fussler 1996). An inventory table has been reprocessed by taking information from two resources (See table 1for printer and table 2 3 for Cartridge and packaging). gunpointMass(Grams) distinguishMetals( total)910Steel696Aluminum165Copper49Motor fartPlastic(Total)2179Recyclable1887Non-Recyclable292ABS163HIPS1472Others plastics544Includes elastomers etcOthers Genera144Electronics(Total)507Including external cable and power supply.Printer Total3740Recyclable(Total)2947Includes recyclable metals, plastics, copper and so forthRecyclable (%)79%Table 1(Inventory table reproduced by information sourced Jason et al 2005 William et al 2002)Ratio amidst recyclable and non-recyclable material in an inkjet printerFigure 3 comparability between recycleable and non-recycable materialInventory table reproduced by information sourced Jason et al 2005 William et al 2002Cartridge MaterialItemMass (gram)NotePlastics(total)20PET+ 15% GF20Other PlasticsOther Generals(total)E lectronics4 sign21Black 21 g/Color 42 gCartridge Total45Table 2 (Jason et al 2005 William et al 2002)Printer PackagingTable 3Printer PackagingItemMass(gram)NotePolystyrene0.014Shipping restrainPolycarbonate0.015CD storyboard/Cardboard0.881 plaza paper0.107Manual etcPackaging(Total)1.017Table 3 Jason et al 2005 William et al 2002)We can describe the impact of printer by dividing it into cardinal phases paper recitation impacts, electricity recitation and the management of waste products. According to historical data, the usage of paper has increased to three fold over the last three decades (Mckinny 1995). The paper has been used as a main source of information storage since ancient Egyptians invented the papyrus, the Chinese make it more perfect by large scale paper manufacture and Gutenberg invented the printing press (Saaty 1980). However, the global warming has increased the importance of paperless terminology and most of organizations and utility firms are switching to the pa perless strategies (Newton 1993). There are three significant way to assess the environmental impact of a product (James 1997). These are known as eco-point, eco- salute and eco-compass. In life cycle environmental cost analysis (LCECA), the eco cost are included into the total cost of the product. The eco-cost are the sum of remove and in-direct costs of the environmental impacts crusaded by the product in its entire life cycle. The aim of the LCECA is to find out alternative design, model and parts which are eco-friendly. Actually, it is true analysis as impacts on environment does cost us like waste management or the health hazards to the public etc. In our example of the Ink jet printer, we can add the cost of health hazards of ink, disposal cost and use of electricity in the existent cost of the printer to find out the LCECA. For example an inkjet printer may be cheap at its initial price than other printer but may cost more on the basis of its environmental impacts than oth er printer which are expensive at the beginning but is energy efficient and less negative to the environment.Energy efficient product is environmentally friendly as it produces less carbon print (NUON 2009). The other system which is mostly used in UK is the eco point system to find out the environmental impacts of a product. A score is fixed for each impact of the product. Then the score are calculated and sum up to find out the resultant impact of a product. The score mentions the demonstrable eco points of a product on the environment. UK eco point system is an established methodology and internationally accepted. The eco points are calculated from the LCA of a product. The process of eco point calculation is not very straight forward but not very complicated. The characterized data is found out in the form of units (e.g. temper, vapors etc) shared by the norm (UK impacts per person). Then it is multiplied by a free weight to convert into eco points. For example, if we want to assess the environmental impacts of our product Ink jet printer, then we will calculate eco points for each impact separately and then sum them up to make resultant eco point. The third method to find out the environmental impact is called as eco compass method. In this method the sustainability of the product design is assessed to assess the environmental impact of a product. A sustainable product design (SPD) is defined as the design which is economical, environmentally friendly and socially liked (Tassoul 1998). A SPD is not a impartial design but it is an innovative, creative and efficient. It requires the efforts of various business sectors such as policy makers, business strategies, managers. A SPD can provide better compulsory impact on environment. For example, in case of our produce Inkjet printer, A SPD may be a printer with least harmful ink, very efficient on energy consumption and with least waste material.The impact of printer usage on environment can be best sti ll by considering carbon print produced as a result of energy usage during its manufacture, use and then in waste disposal. All stages of printer should be considered starting from, printer manufacture to the end of printer life. none of the stages can be ignored as ignoring any phase will not count the actual amount of CO2 production at that stage. For example, if we ignore manufacturing stage then we can ignore the Co2 produced at manufacturing stage of the printer.The printers industrial, commercial or domestic use some chemicals in the form of ink which is harmful to the environment and human health (Dias 2004). These chemical are hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic and also cause significant damage to lungs, skin and nervous tissues if exposed for long time. The harmful materials used in printer also contain very hazadorous material including Silver, Phosphoric acid and Isopropyl alcohol. However, the things are changing now the printing industry has started to look at less harmful solut ions. One of such measures is the waterless printing. The waterless technology reduces VOCs (Volatile native Compound) emissions by 98 %. The VOC are the major contributor in formation of low level Ozone (Counsell et al 2007). The low level ozone can cause respiratory problems and aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases. The VOC are gasses consisting on harmful chemicals with negative health effects. These chemicals cause environmental pollution by spreading petroleum based ink dies (Erbes 1996). Petroleum based inks have been the traditional choice in the printing industry. These inks are not considered as environmentally friendly. The other disadvantages of petroleum based inks are the use of non-renewable resource-petroleum. There has been a revolution in ink improvement in print industry. These inks are vegetable based and soy based inks and release few fractions of VOC.Printers have environmental impacts which should be minimized. Socially we can adopt environmentally friendly behavior if we adopt certain positionings towards the use of printers. First of all less paper can be used if ingeminate sided printing is used (UC 2009). Therefore, duplex printing should be preferred. Now-a-days, there is universal attitude to go paperless. A lot of options are available in the form of CDs, flash memory sticks, HDD and memory cards. An attitude to recycle cartridges may reduce waste and pollution. The trend has increased and most of manufacturers are accepting used cartridges for recycling. The used cartridges may be re-filled and reused. The manufacturers may be encouraged to manufacture such cartridges which can be used again by re-filling ink. The reuse and recycling of the cartridges may reduce the landfill by cartridge plastics and thus can save landfill and resources. Ink refills are also available in mega fill packs reducing the packaging and waste fill. In addition to deliver on paper and cartridges, electricity is another consideration. Energy efficient printers with energy saving modes are available and should be used in preferable way.In short, the LCA of inkjet printer has provided enough information on environmental impacts of inkjet printer from manufacturing to the end of life and then disposal. The LCA of a printer has provided us enough information to review, revise and plan environmentally friendly design of a printer. It also indicates less harmful priorities and choices during life cycle of a printer. For example double sided printing will be environmentally friendly than single sided printing. take over amount of paper will be consumed in single sided printing. To use double sided printing mechanical design and/or software may need updating. Next consideration may be the nature of paper. Paper generated from wood pulp has much impact on environment (Szabo 2009). Therefore, paper generated from non-wood fibers should be used for better environmental effects (Abramovitz et al 1999). again printer design may n eed to change to adapt non-wood paper use. The second major contributor of environmental impacts in LCA of a printer is the electricity. An automatic solution is saver mode where printer turns off mechanically when it is not in use. However, the user should also adopt the habit of go off printer when it is not in use. The act of turning off printer when not in use will save about half of the environmental impact caused by a cartridge during its life cycle (William et al 2002). In addition to that, printer which do not used electricity when in off mode should be promoted. The current study also suggested the use of vegetable origin ink cartridges to reduce environmental impact. Similarly saving paper and cardboard by multi-items pack will also help to reduce environmental impact. It would be better to mention life cycle costs on cartridge pack to convince user about environmental impacts of ink. At the end of product life, the reuse and recycling of various materials should be prom oted. The selection of material at manufacturing stage becomes important as it may provide chance to select sustainable material that can be reused or recycled.ReferencesCounsell. T., Allwood.J.2007. Reducing climate change gas emissions by cutting out stages in the life cycle of office paper. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. (49)340-352.Dias.2004. Evolution of the environmental performance of printing and writing paper using life cycle assessment. Management of environmental Quality journal. (15)473-483.Hischier.R. 2007. Life cycle inventories of packagings and graphical papers. Dubendrof.Lehman.M.2007. Life cycle inventories of electric and electronic equipment. Dubendrof.Szabo, L.2009. A world model of the pulp and paper industry. Environmental Science and Policy (12)257-269.