| Abstract | KB  Full paper
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Background, Aim and Scope:
Life Cycle Assessment is a techniquefor evaluating the environmental performance of a givenproduct by: identifying and quantifying the energy and rawmaterials used in its manufacturing process, as well as the emissionsof pollutants to water, soil, and air inherent in this production,use and disposal, and evaluating the environmentalimpact associated with the use of energy and materials and theemissions of pollutants, thus identifying opportunities to improvethe system in order to optimize the environmental performanceof the product. CETEA (Packaging Technology Center)has conducted a Life Cycle Assessment – LCA study of aluminumcan with emphasis in life cycle inventory, collecting datafor the reference years 2000–2002. The goal of this paper is topresent part of this complete study, focusing the influence ofaluminum recycling rate on the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) ofaluminum beverage cans in Brazil.
Materials and Methods:
The adopted methodology was based on the recommendationsof SETAC – Society of Environmental Toxicologyand Chemistry and the ISO 14040 Standard, approved by theSub-Committee 05 of the Environmental Administration TechnicalCommittee, TC-207, from ISO – INTERNATIONALORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION [1,2]. Datastorage and modeling were performed by employing the PIRAEnvironmental Management System – PEMS [3].
Results:
Taking into account the impact categories adopted inthis study, it has been shown that recycling helps to improve thealuminum can environmental profile measured as LCI data.
Discussion:
For the transformed aluminum products, the recyclingrate affects the values of the environmental parameters inventoried,but not in the same proportion, since the contributionof other stages of the product system life cycle and the recyclingprocess remain unchanged, including the yield of this process. Ingeneral, the recycling balance is always positive due to the importanceof the stages that precede the packaging production andthe problem of increasing the municipal waste volume.
Conclusions:
The advantages of the recycling are obviously concentratedon the inventoried parameters related to the primaryaluminum production and to the package disposal. The verifiedbenefits of the recycling increase with the recycling rate enhancement.However, the effects on the inventory do not have thesame magnitude of the recycling rate. This happens due to therelative contributions of the other life cycle stages, such as thetransportation and sheet or can production. In agreement withthe presented results, it is possible to conclude that the aluminumcan recycling reduces part of the consumption of naturalresources and the emissions associated to the stages previous tothe production of the packaging. The parameters specificallyrelated to the stage of aluminum production suffer reductiondirectly proportional to the increase of the recycling rate. In thisway, all of the efforts made to increase the recycling rate willhave a positive contribution to the LCI of the aluminum can.
Recommendations and
Perspectives:
It is worth pointing out that LCA studiesare iterative and dynamic. The data can always be refined, substitutedor complemented with updated information in order toimprove the representativeness of the analyzed sector.
From this study, the aluminum sector in Brazil isable to quantify the benefits of future actions for environmentalimprovement of the Brazilian aluminum industry, as well as tocontribute technically to Environmental Labeling initiatives regardingaluminum products.
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