A study on handling of used refrigerator based on inverse manufacturing and zero emission

Abstract

Nowadays we hardly live without electric appliances such as refrigerator, air conditioning, washing machine and so on. Their existence makes our life much easier than ever and they function very importantly for the household activities. Refrigerator is a well-known appliance used to keep the foods and vegetables fresh. After the product life time is over, people throw it away and buy the new one. This product becomes waste that might become a dangerous substance as it contains a lot of hazardous parts and irreversible components. Mishandling this product can lead to the contribution of citizen to demolish and contaminate their environment. To minimize the negative impacts, a special treatment is given and concept of inverse manufacturing and zero emission can be implemented. This is because the concept has shown its roles in encouraging all stakeholders to participate in managing and treating products since the very beginning in the development stage. This method can also be applied to manage and handle product at the stage after being used. Handling of used refrigerator involves many parties such as houses of repair, shops of used products, recycling industries etc. A program to handle it in a better way is aimed at reducing the poisonous components to be dumped into the earth and the environment. Other point is to encourage the manufacturers to rethink about how to design and to make a product that can be completely reused and recycled after being used. This research focuses on investigating the local practices of recycling process of used refrigerator and to get the graphical view how this runs. Recycling activities involve some people mostly from the informal sectors. They work out the product and reuse the components for the second grade products. The part collectors sell the aluminum and copper based materials to the higher level collectors. This route of used product produces less waste than if it’s directly thrown away to the earth. One typical characteristic of this informal recycling process is that it provides employment opportunities to some people who right now can not be provided formal jobs by the government. Low income society who can not afford buying a new refrigerator, can now buy the second grade products that reassembled from some reuse components. At the end, this research presents a graphical portrait of recycling activities of the used refrigerator and the involvement of informal sectors to provide job opportunities in Indonesia.