Recycling oriented design - a case study on house appliances using the software ATROiD

The End of Life costs of products are usually determined at their design stage. To increase the awareness of this fact, design engineers are supported by tools that help them to assess the impact of their proposed design and to direct them to an environmentally conscious design. The software tool ATROiD (Assessment Tool for Recycling Oriented Design) has thus been developed to realize these purposes by LG-PRC in cooperation with IWF The tool is composed of three levels including the assessment level, the analysis level and the improvement level. Recycling performance considering environmental and economical aspects has been estimated for refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines. The suggestions for the improvement of their end of life costs are given and implemented in the design stage. Typical examples for these improvements are presented using the ATROiD software tool.