A life cycle assessment of injectable drug primary packaging: comparing the traditional process in glass vials with the closed vial technology (polymer vials)

Purpose  

This study compares environmental impacts of two primary packaging alternatives used for injectable drugs: the traditional method based on glass vials and the method developed by Aseptic Technologies based on polymer vials. A critical review by an external LCA expert was made.     

Life cycle assessment of two baby food packaging alternatives: glass jars vs. plastic pots

Background, aim, and scope  This paper compares the life cycle assessment (LCA) of two packaging alternatives used for baby food produced by Nestlé: plastic pot and glass jar. The study considers the environmental impacts associated with packaging systems used to provide one baby food meal in France, Spain, and Germany in 2007. In addition, alternate logistical scenarios are considered which are independent of the two packaging options. The 200-g packaging size is selected as the basis for this study. Two other packaging sizes are assessed in the sensitivity analysis. Because results are intended to be disclosed to the public, this study underwent a critical review by an external panel of LCA experts. Materials and methods  The LCA is performed in accordance to the international standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. The packaging systems include the packaging production, the product assembly, the preservation process, the distribution, and the packaging end-of-life. The production of the content (before preservation process), as well as the use phase are not taken into account as they are considered not to change when changing packaging. The inventory is based on data obtained from the baby food producer and the suppliers, data from the scientific literature, and data from the ecoinvent database. Special care is taken to implement a system expansion approach for end-of-life open and closed loop recycling and energy production (ISO 14044). A comprehensive impact assessment is performed using two life cycle impact assessment methodologies: IMPACT 2002+ and CML 2001. An extensive uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo as well as an extensive sensitivity study are performed on the inventory and the reference flows, respectively. Results  When looking at the impacts due to preservation process and packaging (considering identical distribution distances), we observe a small but significant environmental benefit of the plastic pot system over the glass jar system. Depending on the country, the impact is reduced by 14% to 27% for primary energy, 28% to 31% for global warming, 31% to 34% for respiratory inorganics, and 28% to 31% for terrestrial acidification/nutrification. The environmental benefit associated with the change in packaging mainly results from (a) production of plastic pot (including its end-of-life; 43% to 51% of total benefit), (b) lighter weight of packaging positively impacting transportation (20% to 35% of total benefit), and (c) new preservation process permitted by the plastic system (23% to 34% of total benefit). The jar or pot (including cap or lid, cluster, stretch film, and label) represents approximately half of the life cycle impacts, the logistics approximately one fourth, and the rest (especially on-site energy, tray, and hood) one fourth. Discussion  The sensitivity analysis shows that assumptions made in the basic scenarios are rather conservative for plastic pots and that the conclusions for the 200-g packaging size also apply to other packaging sizes. The uncertainty analysis performed on the inventory for the German market situation shows that the plastic pot system has less impact than the glass jar system while considering similar distribution distances with a confidence level above 97% for most impact categories. There is opportunity for further improvement independent of the type of packaging used, such as by reducing distribution distances while still optimizing lot size. The validity of the main conclusions presented in this study is confirmed by results of both impact assessment methodologies IMPACT 2002+ and CML 2001. Conclusions  For identical transportation distances, the plastic pot system shows a small but significant reduction in environmental burden compared to the glass jar system. Recommendations and perspectives  As food distribution plays an important role in the overall life cycle burdens and may vary between scenarios, it is important to avoid additional transportation of the packaged food in order to maintain or even improve the advantage of the plastic pot system. The present study focuses on the comparison of packaging systems and directly related consequences. It is recommended that further environmental optimization of the product also includes food manufacturing (before preservation process) and the supply chain of raw materials.     

Comparative life cycle assessment of smartphone reuse: repurposing vs. refurbishment

Purpose

Waste management for end-of-life (EoL) smartphones is a growing problem due to their high turnover rate and concentration of toxic chemicals. The versatility of modern smartphones presents an interesting alternative waste management strategy: repurposing. This paper investigates the environmental impact of smartphone repurposing as compared to traditional refurbishing using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

Methods

A case study of repurposing was conducted by creating a smartphone “app” that replicates the functionality of an in-car parking meter. The environmental impacts of this prototype were quantified using waste management LCA methodology. Studied systems included three waste management options: traditional refurbishment, repurposing using battery power, and repurposing using a portable solar charger. The functional unit was defined as the EoL management of a used smartphone. Consequential system expansion was employed to account for secondary functions provided; avoided impacts from displaced primary products were included. Impacts were calculated in five impact categories. Break-even displacement rates were calculated and sensitivity to standby power consumption were assessed.

Results and discussion

LCA results showed that refurbishing creates the highest environmental impacts of the three reuse routes in every impact category except ODP. High break-even displacement rates suggest that this finding is robust within a reasonable range of primary cell phone displacement. The repurposed smartphone in-car parking meter had lower impacts than the primary production parking meter. Impacts for battery-powered devices were dominated by use-phase charging electricity, whereas solar-power impacts were concentrated in manufacturing. Repurposed phones using battery power had lower impacts than those using solar power, however, standby power sensitivity analysis revealed that solar power is preferred if the battery charger is left plugged-in more than 20 % of the use period.

Conclusions

Our analysis concludes that repurposing represents an environmentally preferable EoL option to refurbishing for used smartphones. The results suggest two generalizable findings. First, primary product displacement is a major factor affecting whether any EoL strategy is environmentally beneficial. The benefit depends not only on what is displaced, but also on how much displacement occurs; in general, repurposing allows freedom to target reuse opportunities with high “displacement potential.” Second, the notion that solar power is preferable to batteries is not always correct; here, the rank-order is sensitive to assumptions about user behavior.     

Applied properties and life cycle assessment of flexible packaging lamination processes: a comparative study

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Environmental pollution is a growing problem in developing countries, including China. The packaging-printing industry is considered as one of...     

Environmental and social life cycle assessment of growing media for urban rooftop farming

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - New environmental strategies are emerging for cities to become more self-sufficient, such as hydroponic crop production. The implementation of...     

Evaluation of design options for green product development: a combined Cuckoo search and life cycle assessment approach

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - In response to the public concerns on the performance regarding environmental conservation and energy saving, manufacturers have to perform...     

Subcategory assessment method for social life cycle assessment. Part 1: methodological framework

Purpose

The aim of this work is to propose an objective method for evaluating subcategories in social life cycle impact assessment (S-LCIA). Methods for assessing subcategories have been available since 2006, but a number of these either fail to include all the subcategories envisaged in the guidelines for S-LCA (UNEP/SETAC 2009) or are subjective in their assessment of each subcategory.

Methods

The methodology is characterized by four steps: (i) the use of the organization as unit process, in which it was decided to assess the social profile of the organization responsible for the processes involved in the product life cycle, (ii) definition of the basic requirement to assess each subcategory, (iii) definition of levels based on the environment context or organizational practice and the data availability and (iv) assignment of a quantitative value.

Results and discussion

The result of the method applied was the development of the subcategory assessment method (SAM). SAM is a characterization model that evaluates subcategories during the impact assessment phase. This method is based on the behaviour of organizations responsible for the processes along the product life cycle, thereby enabling a social performance evaluation. The method, thus, presents levels for each subcategory assessment. Level A indicates that the organization exhibits proactive behaviour by promoting basic requirement (BR) practices along the value chain. Level B means that the organization fulfils the BR. Levels C and D are assigned to organizations that do not meet the BR and are differentiated by their context. The greatest difficulty when developing SAM was the definition of the BR to be used in the evaluation of the subcategories, though many indications were present in the methodological sheets.

Conclusions

SAM makes it possible to go from inventory to subcategory assessment. The method supports evaluation across life cycle products, thereby ensuring a more objective evaluation of the social behaviour of organizations and applicable in different countries.

Recommendations

When using SAM, it is advisable to update the data for the context environment. The method might be improved by using data for the social context that would consider not only the country, but also the region, sector and product concerned. A further improvement could be a subdivision of the levels to better encompass differences between organizations. It is advisable to test SAM by applying it to a case study.     

A unified framework of life cycle assessment

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The dichotomy between the attributional approach and the consequential approach is one of the major unsettled questions in life cycle...     

Evaluation of treatment options for well water contaminated with perfluorinated alkyl substances using life cycle assessment

Purpose

As knowledge grows of the potentially harmful effects of chemicals in widespread use, emerging contaminants have become a major source of concern and uncertainty for public health officials and water quality managers. Perfluorinated alkyl substances, often referred to as perfluorinated compounds, have come under recent scrutiny and are present in groundwater at many sites across the USA. We examine the life cycle impacts of treating drinking water at one such site.

Methods

We assembled life cycle models for groundwater treatment and bottled water delivery to residents of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where wells were recently taken out of service due to concerns related to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination. Two treatment methods, granular activated carbon filtration and ion-exchange columns, were modeled under a range of contaminant concentrations covering three orders of magnitude: 0.7, 7.0, and 70 μg/L PFAS. On-site infrastructure, operations, and adsorbent cycling were included in models. Impacts of bottled water production and supply were assessed using two data sets reflecting a range of production and supply chain assumptions. Uncertainty in input data was captured using Monte Carlo simulations.

Results and discussion

Results show that for contaminant concentrations below 70 μg/L, the dominant contributor to life cycle impacts is electricity use at the treatment facility. Production, reactivation, and disposal of treatment media become major sources of impact only at very high PFAS concentrations. Though the life cycle impacts of bottled water are up to three orders of magnitude higher than remediated groundwater on a volumetric basis, supplementing a contaminated water supply with bottled drinking water may result in lower life cycle human health impacts when only a small proportion of the total population is vulnerable.

Conclusions

These results provide quantitative data and proposed scenarios for water quality managers and risk management officials in developing plans to address PFAS contamination and emerging contaminants in general. However, more information on the direct human health effects of these poorly understood pollutants is needed before the trade-offs in life cycle health impacts can be comprehensively assessed.

     

A global life cycle assessment for primary zinc production

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to update the average environmental impacts of global primary zinc production using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. This study represents the latest contribution from zinc producers, which historically established the first life cycle inventory for primary zinc production in 1998 (Western Europe) and the first global LCA-based cradle-to-gate study for zinc concentrate and special high-grade zinc (SHG; 99.99 %) in 2009. Improvements from the previous studies were realized through expanded geographical scope and range of production technologies.

Methods

The product system under study (SHG zinc) was characterized by collecting primary data for the relevant production processes, including zinc ore mining and concentration, transportation of the zinc concentrate, and zinc concentrate smelting. This data was modeled in GaBi 6 and complemented with background data from the GaBi 2013 databases to create the cradle-to-gate LCA model. Allocation was used to distribute the inputs and outputs among the various co-products produced during the production process, with mass of metal content being the preferred allocation approach, when applicable.

Results and discussion

In total, this global study includes primary data from 24 mines and 18 smelters, which cover 4.7?×?10⁶ MT of zinc concentrate and 3.4?×?10⁶ MT of SHG zinc, representing 36 and 27 % of global production, respectively. While the LCA model generated a full life cycle inventory, selected impact categories and indicators are reported in this article (global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, photochemical ozone creation potential, ozone creation potential, and primary energy demand). The results show that SHG zinc has a primary energy demand of 37,500 MJ/t and a climate change impact of 2600 kg CO₂-eq./t. Across all impact categories and indicators reported here, around 65 % of the burden are associated with smelting, 30 % with mining and concentration, and 5 % with transportation of the concentrate. Sensitivity analyses were carried out for the allocation method (total mass versus mass of metal content) and transportation of zinc concentrate.

Conclusions

This study generated updated LCA information for the global production of SHG zinc, in line with the metal industry’s current harmonization efforts. Through the provision of unit process information for zinc concentrate and SHG zinc production, greater transparency is achieved. Technological and temporal representativeness was deemed to be high. Geographical representativeness, however, was found to be moderate to low. Future studies should focus on increasing company participation from underrepresented regions.

     

A system boundary identification method for life cycle assessment

Purpose

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful tool for quantifying the overall environmental impacts of a product, process, or service. The scientific scope and boundary definition are important to ensure the accuracy of LCA results. Defining the boundary in LCA is difficult and there are no commonly accepted scientific methods yet. The objective of this research is to present a comprehensive discussion of system boundaries in LCA and to develop an appropriate boundary delimitation method.

Methods

A product system is partitioned into the primary system and interrelated subsystems. The hierarchical relationship of flow and process is clarified by introducing flow- and process-related interventions. A system boundary curve model of the LCA is developed and the threshold rules for judging whether the system boundary satisfies the research requirement are proposed. Quantitative criteria from environmental, technical, geographical and temporal dimensions are presented to limit the boundaries of LCA. An algorithm is developed to identify an appropriate boundary by searching the process tree and evaluating the environmental impact contribution of each process while it is added into the studied system.

Results and discussion

The difference between a limited system and a theoretically complete system is presented. A case study is conducted on a color TV set to demonstrate and validate the method of boundary identification. The results showed that the overall environmental impact indicator exhibits a slow growth after a certain number of processes considered, and the gradient of the fitting curve trends to zero gradually. According to the threshold rules, a relatively accurate system boundary could be obtained.

Conclusions

It is found from this research that the system boundary curve describes the growth of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results as processes are added. The two threshold rules and identification methods presented can be used to identify system boundary of LCA. The case study demonstrated that the methodology presented in this paper is an effective tool for the boundary identification.     

A proposal for accounting for biodiversity in life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts associated with products throughout their lifecycle. Many impacts are accounted for within the LCA framework, but to date biodiversity impacts have received little attention. There are a number of existing direct and indirect measures of biodiversity within the ecological field, some of which have the potential to be developed into a useable method for LCA. However, our assessment is that considerable development would be required and their implementation for LCA is not likely in the foreseeable future. Here an alternative approach is proposed for rapidly incorporating biodiversity impacts into LCA. The approach relies on expert opinions through a series of questions which aim to encapsulate the main issues relating to biodiversity within a disturbance impact framework. While the technique is in its infancy we outline a foundation for the approach and identify the steps required to develop this method for implementation into LCA.     

Salinisation impacts in life cycle assessment: a review of challenges and options towards their consistent integration

Purpose

Salinisation is a threat not only to arable land but also to freshwater resources. Nevertheless, salinisation impacts have been rarely and only partially included in life cycle assessment (LCA) so far. The objectives of this review paper were to give a comprehensive overview of salinisation mechanisms due to human interventions, analyse the completeness, relevance and scientific robustness of existing published methods addressing salinisation in LCA and provide recommendations towards a comprehensive integration of salinisation within the impact modelling frameworks in LCA.

Methods

First, with the support of salinisation experts and related literature, we highlighted multiple causes of soil and water salinisation and presented induced effects on human health, ecosystems and resources. Second, existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods addressing salinisation were analysed against the International Reference Life Cycle Data System analysis grid of the European Commission. Third, adopting a holistic approach, the modelling options for salinisation impacts were analysed in agreement with up-to-date LCIA frameworks and models.

Results and discussion

We proposed a categorisation of salinisation processes in four main types based on salinisation determinism: land use change, irrigation, brine disposal and overuse of a water body. For each salinisation type, key human management and biophysical factors involved were identified. Although the existing methods addressing salinisation in LCA are important and relevant contributions, they are often incomplete with regards to both the salinisation pathways they address and their geographical validity. Thus, there is a lack of a consistent framework for salinisation impact assessment in LCA. In analysing existing LCIA models, we discussed the inventory and impact assessment boundary options. The land use/land use change framework represents a good basis for the integration of salinisation impacts due to a land use change but should be completed to account for off-site impacts. Conversely, the land use/land use change framework is not appropriate to model salinisation due to irrigation, overuse of a water body and brine disposal. For all salinisation pathways, a bottom-up approach describing the environmental mechanisms (fate, exposure and effect) is recommended rather than an empirical or top-down approach because (i) salts and water are mobile and theirs effects are interconnected; (ii) water and soil characteristics vary greatly spatially; (iii) this approach allows the evaluation of both on- and off-site impacts and (iv) it is the best way to discriminate systems and support a reliable eco-design.

Conclusions

This paper highlights the importance of including salinisation impacts in LCA. Much research effort is still required to include salinisation impacts in a global, consistent and operational manner in LCA, and this paper provides the basis for future methodological developments.

     

ICT for environment in life cycle applications openLCA — A new open source software for life cycle assessment

This paper is a two-fold introduction. For one, it introduces a new, open source, LCA software. Second, it is to establish a new section in Int J LCA named ‘LCA Software’. Herewith, the editors of the journal recognise the growing possibilities and the impact of software, meaning both databases and calculation as well as modelling software, for practical applications as well as for the scientific development in LCA. This section is designed to house a broad variety of papers to beLCA focused and related to ICT (Information and Communication Technology). In this sense, announcements (as this one), conference reports, but also peer-reviewed papers on methodology and case studies, are most welcome.     

Integrating life cycle assessment and life cycle cost: a review of environmental-economic studies

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The purpose of this document is to carry out a critical review of the existing literature by specifically addressing the following: (i) the...     

A graphical representation for consequential life cycle assessment of future technologies. Part 1: methodological framework

Purpose  

To construct future visions of how innovative technologies should be used in the envisioned sustainable society while being aware of system-wide environmental impacts, consequential life cycle assessment (c-LCA) is useful. To systematically evaluate the technologies being aware of uncertainties in choice of technologies made in the future, in this article, we propose a novel graphical representation for theoretical range of impacts that contain results from c-LCA studies. This approach allows analyses of the consequences of the technology introduction without conducting detailed modeling of consequences.     

Life cycle assessment including traffic noise: conventional vs. rubberized asphalt

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - It is estimated that in Colombia around 25 million tires are disposed of yearly. The management of discarded tires is still a major problem...