Articles

Certification Criteria in Type I Ecolabelling Related to Metals for Sustainable Materials Management

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  • (1. Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan; 2. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan; 3. Japan Environment Association, Tokyo 103-0002, Japan)

Online published: 2012-11-15

Abstract

A sustainable materials management for metals should be achieved to conserve resources of metal minerals. For the sustainable materials management, material flows through the whole life cycle of materials have been recognized by material flow analysis (MFA) studies. Former MFA studies pointed out that cyclic use of metals could be enhanced not only by increasing quantity of recovered scrap but also by upgrading quality of the scrap. In general, the quality is degraded by contaminants which commingle at disassembling processes. The mixture of contaminants depends on usage of materials in products. Here, Type I ecolabelling has a potential to convey messages for avoiding mixture of contaminants to the producers of finished products. In this study, on the basis of a survey on existing certification criteria related to metals in the world, a general concept of certification criteria on sustainable materials management for metals in Type I ecolabelling system is proposed. Finally, we propose six criteria in the form of certification criteria in Type I ecolabelling system.

Cite this article

ICHIRO Daigo1, KENICHI Nakajima2, TAKASHI Fujisaki3 . Certification Criteria in Type I Ecolabelling Related to Metals for Sustainable Materials Management[J]. Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University(Science), 2012 , 17(3) : 377 -379 . DOI: 10.1007/s12204-012-1291-z

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