Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment

for Waste Management

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Waste Management in the EU
CONTENT Around 3 billion tonnes of waste are generated in the EU each year -
over 6 tonnes for every European citizen. This has a huge impact on
Waste Management in the EU the environment, causing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change. Good waste management can significantly
Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment reduce these impacts, and Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment can help
policy makers choose the best environmental options.
Supporting Waste Management Decisions - Examples
A key aim of EU policies on resources and waste is to move to a more
Should cars be made of lighter or more recyclable materials? resource-efficient and sustainable future. EU policies and legislation
Should we keep on using old washing machines? on waste highlight the need for good waste management. The Waste
Framework Directive establishes the waste hierarchy. This sets an order of
Is recycling plastic bottles better than incineration with energy
priority, starting with the preferred option of waste prevention, followed
recovery? by preparing waste for re-use, recycling and energy recovery, with disposal
Should home composting be encouraged? (such as landfill) as the last resort.
Case Study: Copenhagen Following the waste hierarchy will generally lead to the most resource-
efficient and environmentally sound choice. However, in some cases
Further Information refining decisions within the hierarchy or departing from it can lead to
better environmental outcomes. The “best” choice is often influenced by
specific local conditions and care needs to be taken not to simply shift
environmental problems from one area to another. Decision-makers need
to base their choices on firm factual evidence. Life Cycle Thinking and

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Assessment provide a scientifically sound approach to ensure that the best
outcome for the environment can be identified and put in place.

Prevention
Preparing for re-use

Recycling

Other Recovery

Disposal
Life Cycle Thinking and The fundamental aim of Life Cycle Thinking is to reduce overall
environmental impacts. This can involve trade-offs between
impacts at different stages of the life cycle. However, care needs
Assessment to be taken to avoid shifting problems from one stage to another.
Reducing the environmental impact of a product at the production
Over their life-time, products (goods and services) can contribute stage may lead to a greater environmental impact further down
to various environmental impacts. Life Cycle Thinking considers the line. An apparent benefit of a waste management option can
the range of impacts throughout the life of a product. Life Cycle therefore be cancelled out if not thoroughly evaluated.
Assessment quantifies this by assessing the emissions, resources
consumed and pressures on health and the environment that The European Commission has developed guidelines for Life
can be attributed to a product. It takes the entire life cycle into Cycle Assessment which are fully compatible with international
account – from the extraction of natural resources through to standards. These aims to ensure quality and consistency
material processing, manufacturing, distribution and use; and based on scientific evidence when carrying out assessments.
finally the re-use, recycling, energy recovery and the disposal of Further information as well as reference material is available at:
remaining waste. http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

Life Cycle Thinking

Resource Use Health & Environment

Raw Impact
Materials
Reccovery

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yclin

Energy Climate Change

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Production

Materials
Use

Eutrophication

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Land Use po
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Storage
Retail

Supporting Waste a specific situation.

Typical questions that can arise in local or regional settings include:
Management Decisions - • Is it better to recycle waste or to recover energy from it?
Examples What are the trade-offs for particular waste streams?
• Is it better to replace appliances with new, more energy
European, national and local public authorities and businesses efficient models or keep using the old ones and avoid
are increasingly being encouraged to make use of Life Cycle generating waste?
Thinking and Life Cycle Assessment as support tools for decision-
making. • Are the greenhouse gas emissions created when collecting
waste justified by the expected benefits?
Waste management is an area where local conditions often
influence the choice of policy options. Life Cycle Thinking and The next pages provide a handful of practical examples of how
Life Cycle Assessment can be used to weigh up the possible Life Cycle Thinking has been applied to answer these kinds of
environmental benefits and drawbacks linked to policy options in questions.
Should cars be made of lighter or new machine requires energy and creates Recycling therefore normally results
more recyclable materials? emissions equivalent to 20 kg CO2 over in lower energy consumption than
the same period. Replacing the machine incinerating bottles and producing new
Car manufacturing requires a wide variety
therefore avoids the equivalent of about ones from raw material. This example
of materials. Steel has traditionally been
10 kg CO2. assumes, however, that the plastic is not
used, but is progressively being replaced
heavily soiled and is not degraded in the
by plastics and composite materials This illustrates that it can be preferable
recycling process.
which are typically lighter. Steel makes a to buy a new more efficient appliance
car heavier, which in turn increases the rather than keeping an old one to avoid In this particular example, Life Cycle
amount of fuel needed to drive the car. generating waste. However, to determine Assessment confirms that recycling is
However, steel parts are easily recycled at solutions for specific appliances, a Life better than energy recovery, as described
the end of the vehicle’s life, while plastics Cycle Assessment needs to be made. in the waste hierarchy. However, a
and composites often are not. Policy approaches in favour of one option Life Cycle Assessment carried out
over another can then be argued on the under different conditions (such as in
For a specific case, an environmental
basis of verifiable evidence. another region) could result in different
impact analysis showed that only if a
________________ conclusions.
car is driven more than 132,000 km is
________________
there a net benefit gained by using the “Évaluation des bénéfices environnementaux,
lighter but less recyclable materials. In this économiques et sociaux de différents ELCD Database : http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
example there is a trade-off between two scénarios de réutilisation des déchets par
For amorphous PET (Bio-IS « Bilan
environmental benefits. One is the lower les entreprises d’économie sociale”. RDC
environnemental sur les filières de recyclage
fuel consumption due to the use of lighter Environment study for the Walloon Waste
: l’état des connaissances ACV ». For the
materials and the other is the energy Agency, 2008
Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise
savings due to recycling. Benefits will also
de l’Energie - ADEME (2001))
depend on many other variables, such as Is recycling plastic bottles better than
replaced parts and the car type. incineration with energy recovery?
100
This example illustrates that it is A frequent issue in waste management Energy recovery
important to consider a number of is whether to recycle or incinerate used 60 Recycling process
Avoided Production
aspects of a product, including its weight products. Life Cycle Assessment helps 20

MJ/kg
and recyclability. Reducing weight is address this issue. In this example, plastic
typically seen as a way of limiting the bottles are considered, and for simplicity -20
environmental impact of products. only the energy aspects are taken into
However, this needs to be balanced account. -60
against the recyclability of the product
The production of plastic bottles from -100
and its components. The example further Recycling Incineration
suggests that if plastic components were raw materials requires about 80 MJ/kg
more easily recyclable, benefits for the (energy per kilogramme). Incineration
can generate about 3 MJ/kg of electricity Should home composting be
environment could be greater.
and about 10 MJ of process steam from encouraged?
________________ the recovered energy. However, despite A comprehensive study that included
Duflou JR, et al. Environmental impact this small energy gain, new bottles would both Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and an
analysis of composite use in car have to be produced, requiring high evaluation of costs and benefits to society
manufacturing. CIRP Annals - Manufacturing amounts of energy. In contrast, recycling was conducted in order to assess the
Technology (2009) and selective collection consumes 9 potential benefits of home composting.
MJ/kg while also avoiding the much
higher energy consumption used in The study concluded that home
Should we keep on using old washing the production of new plastic from raw composting is not always environmentally
machines? materials. preferable to separate collection, followed
by industrial composting. A reason for this,
Keeping and using a 3-year-old washing
machine that is efficient (such as category
A) is probably an environmentally sound
choice. However, when you have a 7-year-
old washing machine with low energy
efficiency (e.g. category C) should you
continue to use it for another 5 years,
avoiding waste, or should you recycle it
and buy a new, more efficient machine
(e.g. category A)?
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A study showed that replacing the

machine instead of continuing to use it
leads to lower energy consumption and
emission reductions equivalent to around
30 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 5
year period. Producing and recycling a
highlighted in the study, is that 20-65% of Case Study: Copenhagen The assessment concluded that street
home composters do not manage their collection (alternative 2) is preferable
Following new statutory requirements on
composting process appropriately. This from a purely environmental perspective
waste collection, the city of Copenhagen
generates a variety of harmful emissions (230 tonnes of CO2-equivalent, and 0.6
needed to look into new options for
(such as methane, nitrous oxide and tonnes of SO2 saved) with collection at
managing drinks packaging waste,
ammonia). existing glass bottle banks (alternative
in particular for metals and plastics.
1) in second place, saving 110 tonnes of
However, home composting is much To help with decision-making, a Life
CO2-equivalent and 0.4 tonnes of SO2.
cheaper and promotes environmental Cycle Assessment was carried out to
However, a combined environmental and
awareness. It may therefore be necessary complement an economic evaluation.
economic assessment showed that the
to complement policies that encourage The purpose was to see whether the
collection of plastic and metal at existing
citizens to practice home composting existing collection and treatment strategy
bottle banks (alternative 1) proved to be
with information and guidance about could be replaced by a more efficient
the best option. This has become the new
best practice. This involves turning the one, both from an environmental and
management strategy for used metal and
compost regularly in order to enable economic perspective. The environmental
plastic drinks packaging in Copenhagen.
the material to get enough air, as lack evaluation took into account impacts such
of oxygen leads to the generation of as emissions of greenhouse gases and This example demonstrates that life
emissions and harmful compounds. acidification, measured in tonnes of CO2- cycle approaches can be applied to a
equivalent and SO2, respectively. well-defined situation at city level and
As this example illustrates, Life Cycle
illustrates how Life Cycle Assessment
Assessment can help policy makers weigh Four alternative scenarios were studied
can be used to complement a purely
up seemingly contradictory economic, and compared to the existing strategy,
economic analysis. It can help find
social and environmental conclusions. which involved collection with other
solutions that are better for the
________________ types of household waste, followed by
environment while also considering
incineration:
financial constraints.
“Évaluation des politiques de prévention en • Collection for recycling at existing glass
________________
matière de déchets ménagers et assimilés, bottle banks
Evaluation des politiques de compostage à • Street collection for recycling Alejandro Villanueva, Karen B. Kristensen and
domicile”. RDC Environment study for the • Centralised collection at recycling Nanja Hedal (2006). In Danish Topic Centre
Walloon Waste Agency, 2004 centres on Waste and Resources (Ed.): A quick guide
• Separate collection in containers next to LCA and CBA in waste management.
to the existing glass bottle banks

Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment can be used to support can guide public authorities and businesses to make better
decision-making in the area of waste management and to environmental choices.
identify the best environmental options. It can help policy makers
It should be noted that the examples given here are valid for their
understand the benefits and trade-offs they have to face when
specific situation and their conclusions cannot be generalised.
making decisions on waste management strategies. It gives
quantitative information which puts potential environmental The Commission will develop a detailed guidance document
advantages and disadvantages into perspective. A Life Cycle on how to apply Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment to waste
Assessment cannot replace a decision-making process but it management.
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Further Information
Further information about EU waste policy and legislation can be found on the DG Environment website:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste
Further information on Life Cycle Thinking and how to conduct a robust Life Cycle Assessment, including the International
Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) and guidelines for waste management, are available at:
http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

A general brochure on Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment is available at the above websites.