Page 261 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

11

Life Cycle Assessment and End of Life
Materials Management

Keith A. Weitz

Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC, USA

Abstract
The management of waste, from households to industrial facilities, is a challenging
issue because it entails a balancing of technical, economic, environmental, and social
dimensions. From a sustainability perspective, waste represents an inefficient use of
natural resources. Once generated, it can present adverse impacts to the environment
and to humans who come into contact with it or with the resulting pollution. Taking
a life cycle perspective encourages waste planners to consider the environmental
aspects of the entire system, including activities that occur outside of the traditional
framework of activities from the point of waste collection to final disposal, as well as
outside of cities and regions where wastes are generated. The focus of this chapter
is on application of life cycle assessment to municipal, commercial, and institutional
waste management. Topics include: value of applying life cycle principles and con-
cepts to end-of-life materials management; key life cycle procedures and their applica-
tion to end-of-life systems; existing data and tools to support end-of-life analyses; and
using life cycle information for decision making.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment, waste management, materials management,
end-of-life

11.1 Introduction

Wastes are produced at all levels of society, from households to industrial facili-
ties, and managed at multiple levels from local government tocommercial service
providers. Once generated, waste can present adverse impacts to the environ-
ment and to humans who come into contact with it or with the resulting pollu-
tion. One of the greatest environmental challenges to both the public and private
sectors is the cost-effective and environmentally sound management of wastes.
The generation of waste can be thought of as an inefficient use of resources.
In the life cycle context, waste can be generated in the extraction and process-
ing of natural resources, manufacturing of products, packaging and transport
to markets, and ultimately consumption and disposal. Some businesses and

Mary Ann Curran (ed.) Life Cycle Assessment Handbook: A Guide for Environmentally
Sustainable Products, (249-266) © 2012 Scrivener Publishing LLC

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