Standard Guide for Alternative Allocation Approaches to Modeling Input and Output Flows of Secondary Materials and Related Recycling Scenarios in Life Cycle Assessment

Importancia y uso:

4.1 LCAs can help to identify some of the potential environmental impacts of products or services throughout the entire life cycle. In a life cycle inventory analysis, emissions into the air; discharges into the water and soil; and product, material, and energy flows at all stages of a product’s life cycle are compiled and quantified. The resulting life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) converts the quantified parameters into environmental impact categories.

4.2 Options for managing products at their end of life (EOL) can include, but are not limited to, re-using, recycling, recovering, remanufacturing, converting to energy, incinerating, composting, combustion, digestion/respiration, or discarding as waste. Materials enter subsequent life cycle(s), either in the same or in other applications, reducing the input of primary raw material and impacting the amount of waste. LCA will be required to determine if environmental impact reductions are expected to be realized and to what extent for each specific application. The end-of-life management can impact the overall life cycle assessment.

4.3 The application of an allocation method for recycling in life cycle assessments is useful in assessing potential environmental impacts, which may be either beneficial or adverse.

4.4 As part of good LCA practice, practitioners should consider recycling in the sensitivity analysis.

4.5 LCA practitioners are expected to ensure consistency and conformance with the relevant provisions of ISO standards.

4.6 Allocation for recycling can split the flows and impacts between two different product systems.

Subcomité:

E60.80

Volúmen:

04.12

Número ICS:

13.020.60 (Product life-cycles), 13.030.50 (Recycling)

Palabras clave:

50/50 (hybrid); allocation; cutoff approach; end-of-life; environmental impacts, life cycle assessment (LCA); recycled; recycled content; recycling; sustainability;