GCSE Chemistry · AQA 8462 · Topic 4.10.2
Life cycle assessment and recycling
Key points
- A life cycle assessment (LCA) assesses a product's environmental impact at each stage: extracting and processing raw materials, manufacturing and packaging, use and operation, and disposal.
- It considers energy use, water use, resources used and waste or pollution produced.
- Water, energy and emissions can be measured fairly easily, but judging the effect of pollutants involves value judgements, so LCAs are not fully objective. Selective or shortened LCAs can be misused, e.g. in advertising.
- A common example compares plastic and paper shopping bags: each has advantages depending on how many times it is reused and how it is disposed of.
- Reducing, reusing and recycling materials reduces the use of limited resources, energy, waste and environmental impacts.
- Metals can be recycled by melting and recasting; glass bottles can be reused or crushed and melted to make new glass products.
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A product can look "green" but still have a large environmental impact once you count its raw materials, manufacture and disposal. Life cycle assessments look at the whole picture, and reducing, reusing and recycling cut the impact.
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