Page 274 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

262 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

Table 11.3 Summary of results from the open literature on leas for waste
management.

Impact Categories
End-of-Life Resource Management Options*

Recycling WTE Landfill

ADP (Abiotic resource depletion 1.9 2.2 2.2
potential)

AP (Acidification potential) 1.6 2.2 2.5
EC (Energy consumption) 1.5 1.8 2.8

EP (Eutrophication potential) 1 2.5 2.8
ETP (Ecological toxicity 1 2.4 2.8
potential)
GWP (Global warming potential) 1.5 2.3 2.4 ]

HTP (Human toxicity potential) 1.3 2 3
POCP (Photo-oxidant creation 1.5 1.9 2.8
potential)
^Options which have a non-integer ranking indicate that they did not perform uniformly
across all studies. The lower the value, the better the performance of the waste management
option is. Contrary, the higher the value, the worse the performance is.

methodologies and are either an LCA or provide an LCI and (2) deal with
end-of-life resource management processes that include at least one energy
recovery (ER) process. 18 studies were classified as high-priority and were
subsequently analyzed.
Table 11.3 summarizes the results of the literature review using a general
ranking analysis where the values in each cell represent the ranking normal-
ized by the number of reviewed studies in which the waste management
option was investigated, from 1 being the best performance in all studies to 3
being the worst performance.
Overall, the results of the studies reviewed indicate that recycling generally
performs better on a life cycle basis, followed by WTE, and then landfill with
or without energy recovery. However, we found that the LCAs differed signifi-
cantly in their system boundaries and other key assumptions. The following
are other observed outcomes from the studies reviewed:

• Landfill disposal is not the preferred waste management option
with respect to environmental impacts.
• Even with perfect material recovery efficiency, the cost and feasi-
bility of recycling some types of materials may be an impediment.