MODELLING OF RECYCLING, REUSE AND ENERGY RECOVERY IN LCA OF PRODUCTS: A COMPARISON BETWEEN EQUATIONS AVAILABLE IN TECHNICAL STANDARDS

Abstract

The ISO standard 14044 specifies some general rules to deal with end of life recovery processes and related secondary material and energy production in LCA studies. However, different competing approaches have been adopted by existing guidelines and methods for environmental assessment of products. This paper aims at analysing and comparing different formulae prescribed in recent technical standards: ISO/TS 14067, Recommendation 2013/179/EU, and International EPD System. Additionally, the “Integrated formula” advanced by Wolf and Chomkhamsri (2014) has been evaluated. In order to carry out a systematic comparison between these selected modelling approaches, equations from the original sources have been re-expressed using a common terminology defined in the Materials and methods section. Then, all of these methods are judged based on a set of ten criteria, such as applicability in case of open-loop and closed-loop recycling situations, intuitiveness, practicability.

According to this analysis, the ISO technical standard 14067 seems to be the most appropriate to handle recycling/re-use and energy recovery processes, as well the “Integrated formula” proposed by Wolf and Chomkhamsri.