Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
metals and minerals [40-42], polymer [27,43], paper
[44,45], textile and leather [46-48], electronic
[49,50], manufacturing [51], agriculture [52,53] and
food and drinks [54-56].
Cross-sectorial market competition, the EC End-
of-life Waste Management Regulations and more
recently the EC Integrated Product Policy have been
the main drivers for product-oriented LCA activity in
Europe [57-59]. One of the end-of-life management
regulations is the Packaging and Packaging Waste
Directive [60,61], which requires that a certain
amount of the packaging must be recovered after use
and recycled. Other examples include the proposed
EC Directives on End-of-life Vehicles [62] and on
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment [63].
Manufacturers of products that may be affected by
end-of-life management regulations have tried to
influence the regulatory process and the impacts of
these regulations in the market by using LCA to
support their claims.
The LCA-based claims have been used also in
cross-sectorial competition, both by the commodity
and final product producers. Examples of these
include plastic versus paper packaging [8,27] and
phosphates versus perborates in the detergent indus-
try [64]. Many of these studies have been carried out
by the manufacturers themselves, and some of them
have used it for marketing purposes. This has
attracted criticism from independent organisations
and consumers who have questioned the validity of
these studies and their findings. In an attempt to
protect the consumer and encourage the provision
of independent information on consumer products,
policy-makers in Europe have introduced and for-
malised various eco-labelling schemes. In addition to
the EU eco-labelling scheme [65-67], some countries
have their own, including the 'Blue Angel' in
Germany and the 'Nordic Swan' in Scandinavia. The
objective of these schemes is to help consumers
choose environmentally more acceptable products
from a group of equivalent products.
To illustrate the application of LCA for identifying
more sustainable products, a simple case study of
two packaging materials—glass and carton—is con-
sidered below.
carton. Both products have the same function—to
contain a certain amount of liquid. Based on their
equivalent function, the functional unit can be
defined as 'containing 1000 liters of liquid in one-
liter containers'. It is assumed that the glass and
carton containers each weigh 405 and 34.5 g, respec-
tively, so that the total amount of packaging required
to contain 1000 l of liquid is:
Glass:
m
g
= 1000 ¥ 405 g = 405 kg
Carton:
m
c
= 1000 ¥ 34.5 g = 34.5 kg
Note that for illustrative purposes the quantity of
liquid and the size of containers have been chosen
arbitrarily.
The LCA flow diagrams of the two systems are
shown in Figs 5.5 and 5.6. The scope of the study is
'from cradle to grave' and all activities from the
extraction and processing of raw materials through
the manufacture of containers to their final disposal
have been taken into account, including transporta-
tion. It has been assumed that 40% of the glass
bottles are recycled, with the rest being landfilled; all
the carton containers are disposed of in a landfill.
Both the PEMS database and LCA software [17]
have been used for this study and the results of
inventory analysis and impact assessment are shown
in Figs 5.7-5.9. It is apparent that for most of the
burden categories shown in Figs 5.7 and 5.8 the
carton is preferable compared with the glass bottle.
The only notable exceptions to this are the use
of renewable resources (wood) and chemical oxygen
demand (COD); the cardboard manufacturing
process also generates large quantities of waste
water contaminated by non-biodegradable organic
chemicals.
The aggregation of environmental burdens into
impact categories in the Impact Assessment phase
reveals that there are three significant impacts in the
life-cycles of these two packaging materials—fossil
reserves depletion, global warming and landfill space
(volume)—and that overall carton packaging is envi-
ronmentally preferable. Although the glass bottles
are recycled, the difference between the carton and
glass bottles for the three significant burdens is five-
fold. The main reason for this is that, although some
energy is saved by glass recycling, the production of
soda ash that is used in the glass manufacturing
process is so energy intensive that it outweighs the
benefits of recycling at this level (40%). Thus, the
LCA highlights the additional burdens associated
Case study I: glass versus carton packaging
The purpose of the study is to compare the life-cycle
impacts of two packaging products: glass bottle and
