[Quantitative analysis on the changes in anthropogenic lead flows of China]

In recent years, a series of measures have been taken to improve the lead anthropogenic flow. Knowledge of the changes that happened to anthropogenic lead flows can not only examine the effectiveness of these measures, but also help us to understand the current status of lead flows in China, which can provide us quantitative fundamental reference for further improvement in source utilization and environment quality. In this study, the material flow analysis method based on stock and flow (STAF) was employed to analyze the current anthropogenic lead flows in 2010. Based on that, some indices such as lead ore consumption, environmental lead emission, resource efficiency, environmental efficiency, recycling rate, and so on, were taken to evaluate the changes occurred to anthropogenic lead flows during the last decade by comparing their values in 2010 to those in 2000. The results showed that the lead resource efficiency and environmental efficiency in 2010 were 1.3 times and 1.07 times respectively as high as those of 2000, while the lead recycling rate was also increased by 29.57%. However, the quantity of lead ore consumption and environmental lead emissions continued increasing, and were increased by 1.97 and 2.57 times respectively as compared to those of 2000 due to the scale expansion of China in lead production and consumption, which indicates a future heavy task in the improvement of anthropogenic lead flows of China.