Industrial Ecology and the Geoenvironment - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 111

ecology in respect to the geoenvironment itself, we can regard the majority of these meth-
odologies to stem from the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a particular industry or set of
industries in question. The idea of using life cycle assessment or life cycle analysis of a
particular item (industry, element, product, hardware, etc.) is not new or novel. LCAs are
common tools for evaluation of items of interest. They include evaluation of economic
costs over the life cycle of a particular piece of equipment or hardware, material, or mass
low over the life cycle, and encountered risks.
In respect to the geoenvironment, and the goals that deine a sustainable geoenviron-
ment, the principal focus of geoenvironmental life cycle assessment (GLCA) methodologies
is the impact of the various activities and products associated with industrial production
on the health of the geoenvironment. A good example of how GLCA requires a differ-
ent perspective of life cycle costing and evaluation is in the ield of soil improvement
using cementing agents. Soil cement has been used for improving the support capabil-
ity of a particular piece of ground for over 60 years. It has even been used as a type of
low-cost tertiary road in many countries. The problem that one faces is in respect to the
geoenvironment and the need to protect its resources. Because of the relative inexpensive
nature of the product (soil-cement road production), and because of the apparent facility
in producing a soil-cement road, many have been built without much regard for their
effective use and durability. The end result of a rapidly deteriorating system of tertiary
roads is a highly impacted geoenvironment landscape, i.e., highly degraded soil quality.
Restoration of the soil to its original soil functionality requires removal of the cementing
agent, and the costs and penalties associated with the restoration must be included in the
GLCA. The discussion in Chapter 12 points the way toward a more sustainable means
for soil improvement, thereby minimizing and even eliminating adverse impacts on the
geoenvironment.
As commonly perceived, the ultimate goal of industrial production is the transforma-
tion of raw or source materials into inished goods and products for the beneit of society.
The agents or tools for industrial production include manufacturing industries such as
upstream, midstream, and downstream industries. Upstream industries produce raw or
source materials that feed midstream and downstream industries, such as those discussed
in Chapters 5 and 6, to produce their goods as inished products or as inputs or source
materials for further downstream industry use. The petrochemical and agroprocessing
industries are good examples of downstream industries. The source or raw materials for
the petrochemical industries include oil and gas produced or obtained from oil and gas
production upstream industries. Similarly, the source (raw) materials for the agroprocess-
ing industries include the products from agricultural and livestock production generated
by the upstream agro industries.
For an assessment or analysis of the life cycle of a particular set of products on the
health of the geoenvironment, one needs to begin with the upstream phase and end with
the inal downstream phase. The illustrative example shown in Figure 4.2 for consumer
goods involving metal products depicts the various entities that a GLCA would include.
Note that insofar as the geoenvironment-related issues for the life cycle assessment are
concerned, the illustrated elements in Figure 4.2 deal only with the beginning and “end-of-
life” of the consumer product. The individual GLCA of each of the industries and elements
involved, beginning with the upstream industry and ending with the landill itself are
not included in the illustration. The GLCA and related discussion for the upstream min-
ing, extraction, and processing industry shown as in Figure 4.2a can be found in Chapter 5,
Figure 5.1. The extent of detail that a GLCA could consider can be very short or very long,
depending on such factors or issues as magnitude of the project, economics, time, public