Lead, Cadmium and Mercury Flow Analysis – Decision Support for Austrian Environmental Policy

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Hubert Reisinger 1, Gerald Schöller 2, Thomas Jakl 3, Raimund Quint 3, Brigitte Müller2, Alarich Riss 1 and Paul H. Brunner 2

Summary: This paper discusses the sup- nen Datenlücken und widersprüchliche historic and existing material flows, stocks, port for environmental policy decisions Angaben aus unterschiedlichen Quellen emissions, and hot spots for which action that can be provided by substance flow entdeckt und fehlende Daten errechnet is most urgent. Such factual bases already analysis (SFA). Flows and stocks of lead werden. Zum anderen – und dies ist von have been provided for many substances (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg) are besonderer Bedeutung für die Entschei- by substance flow analyses (SFA). To men- investigated through the Austrian eco- dungsfindung in der Umweltpolitik – ver- tion but a few: nomy and environment. Two advantages mittelt die SFA ein vollständiges Bild bei ■ ■ A pioneering MFA study on the histo- of SFA are emphasized: first, because SFA voller Transparenz. Sie ist ein nützliches rical pollution by heavy metals and is based on the law of conservation of Instrument zur Sichtbarmachung der Ge- PCBs in the Hudson River Basin was mass, input and output flows of processes samtauswirkungen von umweltpolitischen published by Ayres and Ayres in 1988. have to be balanced. This balancing prin- Maßnahmen – wie etwa Integrierte ■ ■ Stigliani et al. 1993 assessed the lead ciple allows identifying data gaps and con- Produktpolitik, Konsumentenschutz, pollution in the river Rhine basin by a tradicting information supplied by diffe- Emissionskontrolle und Abfallwirtschaft – material flow approach. rent sources, and helps to calculate missing auf die Wirtschaft eines Landes and seine ■ ■ Brunner 1998 investigated in the EU FP data. Second and most important for envi- Umwelt. Die SFA hilft auch, Gefahren- 4 project MAcTEmPo the potential of ronmental policy making, SFA gives the herde festzustellen, die zusätzliche SFA as a tool for decision making in en- “whole picture and full transparency”. It is Maßnahmen notwendig machen, um den vironmental policy. Imports and ex- instrumental in showing the combined ef- Druck auf die Umwelt zu reduzieren bzw. ports of all goods and selected substan- fect of different environmental policy mea- sekundäre anthropogene Lager zu nutzen. ces were assessed on the urban, sures such as integrated product policy, Die mittels SFA erhaltenen Daten sind regional and national level, and the an- consumer protection, emission control, sorgfältig auszuwerten, damit zwischen thropogenic material stocks investiga- and waste management on the economy nützlichen und schädlichen Stoffflüssen ted. As a result, implications such as of a country and its environment. SFA also und Lager unterschieden werden kann, the link between urban metabolism helps to identify hot spots for which addi- z. B. wenn Stoffe, die große Mengen an ge- and emissions, and the accumulation tional measures are required to reduce en- fährlichen Schwermetallen enthalten, of new anthropogenic resources were vironmental pressure or to make use of se- einer Wiederverwertung zugeführt wer- identified. condary anthropogenic stocks. SFA results den sollen. Um eine breite Basis für die ■ ■ Helmers et al. 1995 documented a lead must be carefully interpreted in order to zukünftige Gestaltung der Umweltpolitik contamination decrease in the German distinguish between beneficial and harm- zu erhalten, muss die quantitative SFA urban environment for the period 1972 ful flows and stocks, e. g. when materials durch qualitative Informationen sowie to 1992 of about 85 %. are recycled that contain large amounts of durch zusätzliche Beurteilungshilfen ■ ■ Svidén and Jonsson 2001 analyzed hazardous heavy metals. For a compre- ergänzt werden. mercury flows through the City of hensive base to design future environmen- Stockholm showing the trends for the tal policy, quantitative SFA needs to be period 1795 to 1995, identifying hitherto amended by qualitative information, and unknown mercury sources and show- by additional assessment tools. 1. Introduction ing that already emitted amounts of mercury exceeds the amount of mer- Stoffflussananlyse von Blei, Kadmium In industrialized countries, the last two cury still in anthropogenic stock by a und Quecksilber – Entscheidungshilfe centuries were characterized by the intro- factor of 30. für die österreichische Umweltpolitik duction and use of increasing amounts of ■ ■ Spatari et al. 2005 documented the US heavy metals. The utilization of these me- copper flow for the 20th century, in or- Zusammenfassung: Im vorliegenden Ar- tals in a wide range of products resulted in der to understand how and in what tikel wird die Stoffflussanalyse (SFA) als large economic benefits due to the new proportion materials were used, how Entscheidungshilfe auf dem Gebiet der functions and effects that these substan- they may have dissipated into the envi- Umweltpolitik besprochen. Die Flüsse und ces allowed in their applications. On the ronment, and how they partitioned Lager von Blei (Pb), Kadmium (Cd) und other side, the wide spread use of heavy into certain reservoirs. Quecksilber (Hg) in der österreichischen metals also created concerns regarding ■ ■ Lestel et al. 2007 describe the flow of 30 Wirtschaft und in die Umwelt werden un- their toxicity and negative impact on the metals from 24 sources within the Seine tersucht. Es werden vor allem zwei Vorteile environment. Therefore, measures are river basin in five-year-time steps for der SFA hervorgehoben. Zum einen beruht needed to control the efficient use of ma- the period 1950 to 2000. The special fo- die SFA auf dem Gesetz von der Erhaltung terials and their emissions into the envi- cus is on zinc and on a comparison bet- der Masse – Eintrag und Austrag sind ge- ronment, as well. The basis for designing ween the flows in the anthroposphere geneinander auszubilanzieren; damit kön- these measures is a proper knowledge of and in the Seine River.

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achieved a certain tradition and a high level of credibility in Austria. Still, a comprehensive, consistent and nation-wide data set on lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg) did not exist. Hence, when the European Commission asked the member states to supply information about Pb, Cd and Hg, the Austrian Ministry of Agricul- ture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management decided to use SFA methodology to commission a study on the present turnover of the three heavy metals on a country wide scale. A project was launched to link existing information, and to quantify the flows and stocks of Pb, Cd, and Hg. The main objective was to produce a consistent and ro- bust data set that can be used for decision making in environmental management as well as in waste and resources management. The study was jointly prepared by the Umweltbundesamt (Austrian EPA) and the Vienna University of Technology, and is described in detail in Reisinger et al. (2009). In the present article, the authors describe shortly the method applied, the data source, the results of the study, the implications for environmental policy, and the advantages and disadvantages of using SFA as a methodology for this study. Fig. 1: The system RUSCH of Austrian flows and stocks of Pb, Cd, and Hg, comprising 10 imports, 21 internal flows, and 16 exports, eight processes within and two processes outside the systems boundary. 2. Methods and Data

With respect to integrating resource ma- recently, Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) In order to assess the flows and stocks of nagement and environmental policies a has gained momentum in particular by the three heavy metals investigated, mate- new impetus was given by the “Thematic the Center for Industrial Ecology at Yale rial flow analysis MFA and substance flow Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural University that produces valuable reports analysis SFA were used to link data that Resources” by the European Commission on flows and stocks of many metals on all had been collected beforehand in other (European Commission 2005), which has scales (e. g. Graedel et al. 2004). In Austria, contexts such as emission inventories, en- the objective to reduce the environmental data about the flows and stocks of materi- vironmental monitoring, and waste ma- impact of resource use. Within this frame- als have been collected by several institu- nagement. MFA/SFA were performed ac- work, European countries further limit the tions for individual purposes. Since the cording to (ÖNORM S 2096-1&2 2005) as flow of specific heavy metals. E. g. Sweden 1990ies, SFA has been established in Aus- described by (Brunner and Rechberger has decided to decrease the contents of tria as an acknowledged method. It has 2003). lead, cadmium and mercury in newly pro- been successfully applied in several stu- duced goods as far as possible (Kemi 2007). dies, in particular to support waste ma- 2.1. System Description Austria applies an extended mix of policy nagement decisions, and to deliver inputs measures in order to control the use and for the Federal Waste Management Plan. A The system boundary in terms of space emissions of heavy metals. Despite these National Standard for the application of was defined according to the political bor- measures considerable amounts of lead, SFA in waste management, defining terms, ders of Austria. The upper soil (pedo- cadmium and mercury are suspected to methodology, and range of application sphere) was included in the system. Since still remain in use and to be stored in the has been in use since the year 2006 it was not possible to determine all inputs anthroposphere. As a consequence, careful (ÖNORM S 2096-1&2 2005). For resource and outputs of the lithosphere, atmos- management of these three elements will management and the Federal Resource phere and hydrosphere, these processes remain important in the future, and additi- Report, an SFA study supplied the neces- were not balanced and thus were not in- onal policy measures may be required. sary concept and data to assess future re- cluded within the systems boundaries. In general, reliable information with source constraints and anthropogenic re- The boundary in terms of time was the known uncertainty about the flows and source potentials (for details, see http:// year 2005. The system model comprising stocks of heavy metals are rare. Studies un- www.umweltbundesamt.at/en/umwelt- all sources, pathways, intermediate and fi- dertaken in the 1980ies are either outda- schutz/abfall/vermeidung). This demons- nal sinks for Pb, Cd, and Hg is shown in fi- ted or of disputable methodology. More trates that SFA as a methodology has gure 1; it includes 10 imports, 21 internal

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flows, and 16 exports. Usually, each flow presented in Figure 1 consists of a large aggregation of many flows. The following six main processes were defined: ■ ■ Mining, agriculture and forestry (MAF) ■ ■ Industry, business and services (IBS) ■ ■ Private households ■ ■ Waste management ■ ■ Wastewater management ■ ■ Soil and sealed surfaces.

In addition the combined litho-/hydro sphere, and the atmosphere were defined as processes outside of the systems boundaries. According to SFA methodology, flows in and out of these processes were not balanced, in contrast to processes within the systems boundaries. As one focus of the study was on waste management this main process was divided into several sub-processes for a more detailed investigation.

2.2. Data Collection

Data were obtained by various approaches such as: ■ ■ Bottom up approach: this approach was used when existing information pointed out that the bulk flow of a heavy metal is contained in a limited number of goods. Data on import, export, consumption and waste of single goods and their metal concentration are col lected and used to calculate the flows of Pb, Cd or Hg. E. g. the load of Pb in cathode ray tubes (CRT) was calculated by the Austrian import statistics of CRTs in tons per year times the concentration of Pb in g/kg in an “average” CRT. ■ ■ Top down approach: in general this approach is used when a substance is contained in a wide range of goods in low concentrations. For instance the load of Cd in “electrical appliances” is calculated form an average concentration in waste of electrical equipment times the consumption flow of electrical equipment. For more detailed description of these approaches see Döberl et al. (2005). ■ ■ In addition, statistics from various sources on external trade, production, consumption and waste management as well as additional information found in literature were used to compare and validate data. Special efforts to find more and reliable data sources were undertaken in those cases where subs- Fig. 2: Flows and stocks of Pb (a), Cd (b) and Hg (c) in Austria 2005. With (a) stocks are given tance balances of processes yielded in kt, and stock changes (+ or –xy) in kt/year; with (b) and (c) stocks are given in t, and stock large deficits (> 30 %). changes (+ or –xy) in t/year.

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In a first step goods with low concentrations of Pb, Cd, and Hg, but large overall throughputs – and thus high relevance for the Austrian economy – were chosen for accounting. In a second step special applications and occurrences of each metal were identified, and flows and stocks were quantified. Some data are characterized by high uncertainties. In order to take this into account, a simplified classification system based on the methodology of Hedbrant and Sörme (2000) was applied. Three (Hed- brand and Ströme: five) uncertainty levels were used to categorise data. Depending on the data source an uncertainty of 90, 50 or 25 % was assigned to each substance flow. The software STAN was used for mo- deling substance flows and for data recon- ciliation (Cencic and Rechberger 2008). For Fig. 3: Amounts of Pb, Cd, and Hg contained in total Austrian flows of consumption goods, wastes more details, see Reisinger et al. (2009). and emissions in 2005.

2.3. Calculation of stocks an overview, figure 2 summarizes the in Austria is high; this recycling, however, three aggregated flows and stocks of Pb, is not the consequence of an intentional Geogenic (for example.soils or agricul- Cd and Hg. recovery of cadmium for reuse, but is an ture) and anthropogenic (industry, private unintentional recirculation as impurities households) stocks had to be calculated in 3.1. Consumption, wastes and in different recycled materials. different ways. While geogenic stocks can emissions of Pb, Cd and Hg Due to new Lithium batteries, it is be estimated relatively easy by conside- expected that the use of Cd will further ring the average concentrations of lead, Figure 3 allows comparing the flows of decrease in the future. Thus, Cd is one of cadmium and mercury in soils or plants the three heavy metals through the Aus the first metals that shows a larger waste (Alloway 1995, Adriano 2001), the calcula- trian economy in 2005: the turnover of Pb output than consumption input. This tion of anthropogenic stocks is more dif- is by far the largest of the three heavy me- phenomenon will likely prevail for some ficult because their specific life time has to tals, followed by Cd (2–3 orders of magni- years until the Cd stock in households, be taken into account. On the one hand, tude smaller flows) and Hg (3 orders of industry and the service sector will be ne- anthropogenic metal stocks include buil- magnitude smaller flows). While the ratio arly depleted, confirming that measures dings and infrastructure, with a long life of metal flows in newly purchased consu- taken on the input side take their time to span. These metal stocks can be calculated mer goods versus metal flows in wastes is show effects on the output side. The Cd more or less like geogenic stocks. On the similar for Pb and Hg, the amount of cad- input into soils is dominated by atmos- other hand a large number of goods, like mium wastes is twice as high as actual pheric deposition and agricultural fertili- electric appliances, batteries, cars etc., are cadmium consumption. This demonstra- zer containing Cd. According to the pre- in use for 10 years or less, only. For pro- tes a change in use pattern of Cd that has sent SFA study, emissions from waste ducts and goods (Pb-, Cd- and Hg-rele- been induced in the last two decades: management to the environment are re- vant) with short lifetimes, in a first step based on concerns on the slow accumu- latively small and – due to advanced their average lifespan was roughly estima- lation of Cd in soils and the environment, emission control technologies as well as ted. Assuming that the amounts of waste the use of this metal, especially as an new management strategies – of less con- of these goods – which are well known electroplating agent and additive in plas- cern than in the 1980ies. (BMFLUW 2006) – are equal to the pro- tic manufacturing, has been under pres- Accumulators, in particular car ducts consumed in the same year, the sure in the 1980ies and 90ies. As a result, batteries, account for the biggest Pb flow. stock of a specific product is calculated as and beginning in Sweden, Cd has been Car batteries contain by mass about 55 % the total quantity consumed within its life- replaced in many applications, and is Pb. The recovery of lead is a well estab span. Accounting for average heavy metal- mainly used today for accumulators that lished economic activity resulting in high concentrations (Harant 2001, Morf and can, in contrast to plastic additives, more recycling rates. In Austria, import and ex- Taverna 2004, Gabriel 2004) the stocks easily be recycled. Following recent limi- port of Pb containing products (raw ma- of lead, cadmium an mercury can be tations of Cd in batteries and accumula- terials¸ merchandise, and used materials calculated. tors on Directive 2006/66/EC this appli- for recycling) dominate total lead flows. cation has come under pressure, too. In general, Pb emissions to the environ- 3. Results However, there is still a large stock ment are comparatively small. of old Cd-containing goods such as plas- Mercury is mainly used for dental In this chapter, conclusions regarding the tics and accumulators present that will purposes in Austria; some mercury is results of the SFA that are given in detail in have to be disposed of in the coming ye- contained in minerals and fossil fuels. Reisinger et al. (2009) are presented. As ars. The share of cadmium that is recycled The largest mercury flow was found in

flow of Cd started to decrease. Today, the Cd input into households is smaller than the Cd amount leaving households in wastes, which still remains at high level. According to SFA, the lifetime of the different products is a crucial parameter for policy making: if Cd is contained in long living plastic materials such as highly stabilized PVC for construction purposes (tubings, liner), wastes will contain Cd for many decades to come. If Cd is contained in batteries, the anthropogenic stocks will be deleted in a comparatively short time. The design of environmental policy measures is also affected by difficulties in identifying products with high concentrations of hazardous materials: even for a specialist, it takes sophisticated analytical procedures to measure Cd or Pb in Fig. 4: Allocation of Pb, Cd and Hg to the three anthropogenic stocks “industry, business and plastic materials. For accumulators and service” (IBS), “private households“ (PHH) and “waste management (landfills)” in Austria, 2005. batteries, the necessary information is usually contained in the product’s decla- wastes of consumer products such as a secondary resource or it must be treated ration. Thus, consumers and the service electric appliances, fluorescent lamps and disposed of in a final sink. Cd stocks sector are able to separately collect items and batteries from industry, business and of IBS and PHH are mostly contained in containing easily identifiable Pb and Cd, services (IBS in figure 1). nickel-cadmium batteries used for elec- a precondition for high recycling rates For all three metals the highest tric appliances. In contrast to stocks of and low contaminations. For mixed plas- flows to the environment occur via eluvi- IBS, stocks of PHH are decreasing, which tic wastes, this essential information is ations, that is downward and lateral flows is largely due to the substitution of nickel- not available. Hence, substance oriented of dissolved and particulate matter from cadmium batteries. The Hg stock of PHH policies have to take into account the “vi- the upper soil to the litho- and hydro mainly consists of dental amalgam. For sibility” of a substance. If hazardous con- sphere. For Pb, hot spots of lead accumu- both Cd and Hg the biggest stocks are in stituents of products are not detectable lation in shooting ranges as well as in old landfills: while for Cd 50 % of the total by consumers, e. g. as in plastic wastes or industrial sites (brownfields) appear to stock is in landfills, for Hg more than 80 % in used construction wood, separate re- be of concern and have to be further as- of the total anthropogenic stock is in cycling schemes will be of low efficiency, sessed in the future. Hg emissions amount landfills. and sophisticated technologies for reco- to approximately one third of Hg con- very and disposal have to be applied. sumption. Eluviations equal 20 % of the 3.3. Implications for environmental The same applies to the issue of ac- total Hg export from Austria. Hg emissi- policy making cessibility of products that contain cer- ons to the atmosphere are mainly from tain substances for recycling: as shown by industrial sources and equal about 10 % The SFA study allows for an analysis of Lohm et al. (1997), collecting and recyc- of total exports. different environmental policy-approa- ling of easily available car batteries re- ches. Often measures to protect the envi- sults in a profitable production of secon- 3.2. Anthropogenic stocks ronment are directed either towards the dary lead. Other items that cannot be use of heavy metals (“reduction at the accessed as easy such as water and waste By comparing inputs and outputs of pro- source strategy”) or towards reduction of water pipes require expensive recovery cesses the change in metal stocks – their emissions (“filter strategy”). The present techniques for recycling; thus, primary depletion or accumulation – can be cal- study shows that both approaches are ne- Pb is cheaper than secondary lead from culated. Trends of metals in future waste cessary: the filter strategy allows decrea- these sources. When it comes to often streams can be derived from past chan- sing flows to the environment in a com- “hidden” or “hibernating” telecom ges in consumption and stock manage- paratively short time period. Modern cables, recovery of Pb is, according to ment. filter technologies of waste treatment Lohm et al. (1997) exorbitantly expen- Figure 4 shows the share of the an- processes lead to a decrease of emissions sive. SFA can pinpoint the products that thropogenic stock of Pb, Cd, and Hg in during the past decades by an order of contain large flows of a certain resource. “industry/business/service sector IBS”, magnitude. On the other hand, source re- In combination with cost data the econo- “private households PHH”, and “waste duction reduces the total flow of heavy mic viability of separate collection, treat- management WM”. Approximately two metals through the anthroposphere. ment and recycling schemes can be in- third of Pb stock in IBS and PHH can be While in the past, source reduction of vestigated. This serves for setting priorities accounted for to the use of car batteries. cadmium led to a substitution process for recycling policies. 10 % of the anthropogenic Pb stock is con- (Cd in metal surfaces and in plastic addi- The study shows the large flows of tained in the infrastructure (water pipes). tives was replaced by Cd in accumula- the heavy metals Cd and Hg to disposal In the future, this Pb stock serves either as tors), it appears that recently the total sites. Thus, landfills become containers

for heavy metals that are potentially rele- 4. Advantages and Disadvantages support tool in resources, waste and envi- vant from both environmental aspects of Using SFA as a Methodology ronmental management. Since an entire and resource recovery aspects. Environ- for this Study system is under consideration effects of mental policy must focus on landfills as changes in this system can be analyzed long term sinks for heavy metals. These The two main advantages of using SFA are: quantitatively. metal deposits, as MSW landfills, or as 1. SFA is a transparent and easy to under- Usually decisions in environmental bottom ash and filter ash landfills, will stand (however not so easy to perform) policy making are based on studies focu- stay “forever”. Thus at least the material methodology. Policy makers are able to sing deposited in above ground landfills must become aware of the relevant flows and ■ ■ either on single products or substances be well stabilized with long term immobi- stocks of substances within a given sys- for certain applications, lization in mind. Even if, as in the case of tem of interest, and they can easily dis- ■ ■ on single plants or sectors or Europe, the strategy of landfilling untrea- cern the effects of different measures ■ ■ on a certain environmental medium. ted waste has been replaced by a strategy on a given situation by following the of recycling and incineration, large changes in flows and stocks. SFA, for The objective of this study was to give an amounts of heavy metals contained in example, can help identify contradicto- overview of the major applications and waste treatment residues are landfilled. rions in measures regarding resource emissions of all sectors within the system A specific problem is to be seen in policy and environmental policy. As boundary of Austria in order to identify hot spots such as brownfields and shoo- the RUSCH study shows, an increase in possible concerns. For such complex and ting ranges. While brownfields are hard to recycling of waste, from which cad- material based systems SFA is an approp- be included systematically in country wide mium and mercury have not been se- riate tool as it delivers a complete set of in- SFA studies, ammunition is a normal pro- parated, accumulates these heavy me- formation on all flows and stocks of a par- duct contained in national accounts and tals in the system as pollutants. ticular material within a system, even if as such can easily be included in any SFA. However, SFA is not an evaluation me- some data are unavailable or inconsistent However, most SFAs undertaken on the thod per se: effects on the environment and thus afflicted with a high level of national level do not contain submodels or on resource prices cannot be assessed uncertainty. on the regional or even local level. There- by SFA alone. This requires an additio- fore the real, local effect of such hot spots nal evaluation method, such as an LCA, The following achievements are highligh- cannot be discerned in an SFA without re- a cost benefit analysis, an entropy or ex- ted: gionalization in sub-models. More speci- ergy analysis, and the like. SFA forms a ■ ■ SFA is successful in linking production fic investigations are needed complemen- perfect base for all such evaluation me- and consumption sectors with the sec- ting the country wide SFA-model. The thods because of the following: tors of waste and wastewater manage- present SFA indicates to the authority that 2. SFA is based on the law of conservation ment the amount of Pb on shooting ranges is so of mass. This principle requires that in- ■ ■ SFA allows comparing emissions from large that further investigations and pro- puts and outputs of all processes as well different sectors with total substance bably risk management measures (repla- as the SFA system as a whole are balan- flows cement of Pb by other, less harmful subs- ced. This requirement allows for cont- ■ ■ For more detailed investigations, sub- tances) are needed. rolling many flows and stocks within a systems (e.g. of the waste management In general, MFA on a country wide system that otherwise cannot be as- sector) can be designed and incorpora- scale shows a high level of uncertainty. sessed. As mentioned before, it is never ted into the general SFA model, Therefore, calculated flows and stocks possible to balance all processes due to ■ ■ Inconsistencies of the different approa- have to be regarded as the “most proba- the inherent uncertainty of many flows ches of data collection (e. g. production ble” allowing for some range. Especially and stocks. But in any case, when large data, consumer data, waste or emission regarding industry/business/service sec- loop holes, deficits, and missing infor- data) can be identified and consolidated tor, uncertainties are quite high due to in- mation are detected, the author of an ■ ■ Large amounts of information can be sufficient as well as confidential data. In SFA knows that more specific work aggregated and visualized in a few pro- the present study, the following issues needs to be done in order to better close cesses have not been investigated in sufficient the balance. In economic sectors such ■ ■ SFA fosters life cycle thinking: although detail due to lack of data availability: Pb, as waste management and environmen- SFA shows only a static picture within Cd, and Hg content in wastes of IBS and tal management, often only the outputs the system boundaries it reflects all life- in recyclables; the disposal of one third of (wastes and emissions) of processes are cycle steps of goods. Thus SFA is an ins- the consumer batteries could not be veri- observed. If a full balance of a waste trument which introduces and performs fied; the amount of lead water pipes still treatment process or a filter technology life-cycle thinking as requested by the in use could only be roughly estimated is performed linking inputs and outputs, European Commission (2005). By ap- based on very limited data-sources, and all relevant goods can be identified, faci- plying SFA on a time series base, a dyna- the impact of some specific industrial litating a better control and more effec- mic SFA approach becomes possible. plants could not be included in the natio- tive remediation action. ■ ■ SFA enables to identify relevant sub nal balance. As a remedy, a monitoring stance flows that should be further in- system could help to find those key flows, Thus, an SFA provides policy makers with vestigated and/or should be in the fo- stocks and processes that should be as- objective information on all flows and cus of environmental and resource sessed on a routine base to determine stocks of a particular substance within a policy measures substance flows and stocks with sufficient system. This distinct characteristic of SFA ■ ■ SFA creates transparency of the waste accuracy. makes the method attractive as a decision management sector and thus fosters

decision making in waste management Finally, the anthropogenic metabolism incineration plants identify the full policy. comprises more than substances, materi- concentration of these heavy metals als and products. Energy, space and infor- (these uncertainties being one possible In order to serve as a policy making tool, SFA mation are as valuable resources as mate- explanation why a considerable share needs to present information on a high level rials. Thus, for a comprehensive assessment of the heavy metals from consumer of aggregation. Consequently some impor- of the management of resources in view of batteries seem to be missing in the sub- tant details might not become evident by conservation and environmental protec- stance balances); SFA. For instance in the present study, there tion, it will be necessary to link material ■ ■ The big amount of lead released into is no information on individual industrial flows and stocks with other issues such as the environment by sports shooting, plants and how they might contribute to the energy, economy, information, and urban hunting and fishing; regional emissions in Austria. Detailed back- planning. ■ ■ The big mercury stock in dental amal- ground information is necessary for inter- gam and supposedly in old-mercury- pretation of emission flows. The environ- 5. Conclusions fever-thermometers still kept in mental impact of flows that are small on a households; country wide scale can easily be underesti- Substance flow analysis of lead, cadmium ■ ■ A considerable amount of mercury re- mated if not broken down to regional scale. and mercury has identified the following leased by cremation facilities and buri- For instance lead flows to the environment hot spots for further action in resource, als; are relatively small compared to total flows, waste and environmental policy: ■ ■ The big amount of heavy metals re- but might, as in the case of shooting ranges, ■ ■ Data collection for MFA/SFA is ham- leased into the environment from top- still be of local significance. Often, SFA lacks pered by the fact that consistent data soils by eluviation. information on chemical speciation: for en- sets are not available that allow cost ef- vironmental and resource relevance, it is im- fective SFA of single substances. Future While studies are already underway to de- portant if mercury is present as a metal or as information bases for environmental, crease uncertainties with respect to heavy organic compound. Also frequently pro- resource, and waste management metals concentrations in waste and their ducts or waste fractions with very distinct should include SFA data structure and relation to products, the best way of addres- properties are aggregated to one material data. sing the other hot-spots is still a matter of flow with “average” properties. However, ■ ■ A high level of uncertainty of how heavy discussion among policy makers. n substitution/recycling of a substance can metals in waste streams are related to only be evaluated if the product/waste con- heavy metals in the original products; Correspondence: 1 Umweltbundesamt GmbH, Spittelauer Lände 5, 1090 Wien stituent is known that contains the subs- ■ ■ Uncertainties if current analytical me- 2 TU Wien, Institut für Wassergüte, Ressourcenmanagement tance, and if the fate of the constituent and thods for determining the heavy metal und Abfallwirtschaft, Karlsplatz 13/226, 1040 Wien 3 BMLFUW – Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, the hazardous substance is known. concentration in bottom ash of waste Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft, Stubenbastei 5, 1010 Wien

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