Life Cycle Assessment and Recycling

• why are life cycle assessments carried out

  to assess the environmental impact of products in stages
• what are the stages of life cycle assessments

  • extracting and processing raw materials
  • manufacturing and packaging
  • use and operation during its lifetime
  • disposal at the end of its useful life, including transport and distribution at each stage
• what can be fairly easily quantified

  water, resources, energy sources and production of some wastes
• why are life cycle assessments (LCA's) not a purely objective process

  allocating numerical values to pollutant effects is less straightforward and requires value judgements
• what can elective and abbreviated LCS's be devised for

  to evaluate a product - can be misused to reach pre-determined conclusions (in support of claims for advertising purposes)
• what does reduction in use, reuse and recycling reduce

  use of limited resources like energy sources, waste and environmental impacts
• what things are produced from limited raw materials

  metals, glass, building materials, clay ceramics and most plastics
• where does much of the energy for processes come from

  limited resources
• what causes environmental impacts

  obtaining raw materials from the earth by quarrying and mining
• how can glass bottles be made into other glass products

  crushed and melted
• how can metals be recycled

  melting and recasting or reforming into different products
• what does amount of separation required for recycling depend on

  material and properties required for the final product