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                    Sustainable Industrial Design and Waste Management
                14
                                              Extraction and
                                              processing of
                                              raw materials


                         Safe disposal of
                             waste                                Manufacturing
                                           Cradle-to-grave

                         Use, reuse, and                           Packaging
                            recycling




                                               Marketing


                FIGURE 1.1 Traditional life cycle analysis


                by consumers and finally disposal and waste generation as shown in Figure 1.1.
                The technological advancements in manufacturing processes and the con-
                stantly increasing variety of materials and products have led to a continuous
                rise in the amounts of waste generated. The cradle-to-grave flow of materials
                has proven to be just enough to protect the environment but inefficient due
                to the depletion of natural resources.
                     Several organizations have developed methods for LCA each using a
                different analytic approach to this complex activity. Regardless of the approach,
                several generic difficulties challenge LCA, including poor quality data, weak
                reasons or procedures for establishing analytic boundaries, and diverse val-
                ues inherent in comparing environmental factors with no common objec-
                tive, quantitative basis. The current selection of products undergoing LCA
                has been chaotic; some products have been strongly scrutinized while oth-
                ers have been totally neglected.
                     LCA is a tool for identifying the impacts of a product on the environ-
                ment throughout its entire life cycle or, in other words, from cradle-to-grave,
                including the extraction of raw materials; the processing of raw materials in
                order to fabricate a product; the transportation and distribution of the pro-
                duct to the consumer; the use of the product by the consumer; and finally
                the disposal of the product’s materials after its use (TecEco Pty. Ltd., 2006) as
                shown in Figure 1.1. The main components of a life cycle analysis or assess-
                ment should include the identification and quantification of not only the
                waste generated through the entire life cycle but also the raw materials and
                energy requirements throughout the entire life cycle and their environmen-
                tal impacts. Comparing existing methods for LCA gives insight into the
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