Life Cycle Analysis & Recycling Flashcards

All 12 cards in this deck

What are the four stages of a product's life assessed in a life cycle assessment (LCA)?

1. Extracting and processing raw materials
2. Manufacturing and packaging
3. Use and operation during its lifetime
4. Disposal at the end of its useful life
   Transport and distribution are included at each stage.

In an LCA, which impacts can be fairly easily quantified (given numerical values)?

Use of water, resources and energy sources, and production of some wastes.
Allocating numerical values to pollutant effects is less straightforward.

True or false? A life cycle assessment is a purely objective process.

False.
Allocating numerical values to pollutant effects requires value judgements, so an LCA is not purely objective.

Why might a company publish a selective or abbreviated LCA of its product?

It can be misused to reach a pre-determined conclusion, e.g. to support claims made in advertising.

An LCA table gives no information about energy usage. Suggest two pieces of energy information needed to complete it.

Any two of: energy used in extracting and processing the raw materials; energy used in manufacturing; energy used in transport; energy used in disposal or recycling.

Name the three ways end users can reduce the use of limited resources.

Reduction in use, reuse and recycling.
These also reduce use of energy sources, waste and environmental impacts.

True or false? Metals, glass, clay ceramics and most plastics are all produced from limited raw materials.

True.
Much of the energy for these processes also comes from limited resources.

What are the steps to recycle a used glass bottle into a different glass product?
e.g. a used glass bottle made into a glass jar

1. Collect and crush the glass into small pieces.
2. Melt the crushed glass.
3. Mould or reshape the molten glass into the new product — e.g. a glass jar.
   (Some glass bottles can simply be washed and reused instead.)

Why is scrap steel added to iron from a blast furnace?

It reduces the amount of iron that has to be extracted from iron ore.

Give three reasons why recycling scrap copper is more sustainable than extracting copper from copper ore.

It conserves copper ore (a finite resource), uses less energy and produces less waste.
Mining and quarrying the ore also cause environmental impacts.

What are the steps to compare two products using given LCA data?
e.g. a plastic shopping bag and a paper shopping bag

1. Total each product's impacts over all four stages.
   e.g. a total for the plastic bag and a total for the paper bag
2. Compare them stage by stage.
   e.g. paper uses more energy to manufacture
3. State which has the lower overall impact.
   e.g. the bag with the smaller totals

In a comparative LCA of shopping bags, why does the number of times a bag is used matter?

The impacts are spread over more uses, so the impact per use is lower.