Beyond the material grave: Life Cycle Impact Assessment of leaching from secondary materials in road and earth constructions

In industrialized countries, large amounts of mineral wastes are produced. They are re-used in various ways, particularly in road and earth constructions, substituting primary resources such as gravel. However, they may also contain pollutants, such as heavy metals, which may be leached to the groundwater. The toxic impacts of these emissions are so far often neglected within Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of products or waste treatment services and thus, potentially large environmental impacts are currently missed. This study aims at closing this gap by assessing the ecotoxic impacts of heavy metal leaching from industrial mineral wastes in road and earth constructions. The flows of metals such as Sb, As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, V and Zn originating from three typical constructions to the environment are quantified, their fate in the environment is assessed and potential ecotoxic effects evaluated. For our reference country, Germany, the industrial wastes that are applied as Granular Secondary Construction Material (GSCM) carry more than 45,000 t of diverse heavy metals per year. Depending on the material quality and construction type applied, up to 150 t of heavy metals may leach to the environment within the first 100 years after construction. Heavy metal retardation in subsoil can potentially reduce the fate to groundwater by up to 100%. One major challenge of integrating leaching from constructions into macro-scale LCA frameworks is the high variability in micro-scale technical and geographical factors, such as material qualities, construction types and soil types. In our work, we consider a broad range of parameter values in the modeling of leaching and fate. This allows distinguishing between the impacts of various road constructions, as well as sites with different soil properties. The findings of this study promote the quantitative consideration of environmental impacts of long-term leaching in Life Cycle Assessment, complementing site-specific risk assessment, for the design of waste management strategies, particularly in the construction sector.     

Life-Cycle Impact Assessment of oil drilling mud system in Algerian arid area

The objective of this work is to assess the environmental impacts of the drilling mud system in Algeria's arid region. Water-based mud (WBM) and oil-based mud (OBM) are used during well drilling in Hassi Messaoud petroleum field, and have a considerable pollution potential particularly on the aquifer system which constitutes the single resource of drinking water in the Sahara. The Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach is applied to evaluate the impacts of several drilling mud systems across all stages of their life cycle, e.g. use, treatment and disposal. Environmental impacts of five treatments scenarios corresponding to the drilling waste management applied in Hassi Messaoud are compared: reserve pit without treatment (burial option), secondary high centrifugation (vertical cuttings dryer), stabilisation/solidification online, stabilisation/solidification off line and thermal desorption. The impact assessment is carried on using the LCIA models of Impact 2002+ method in SIMAPRO7 software. This assessment identifies human toxicity and terrestrial eco-toxicity as the major impact categories in this specific arid context and quantifies the emissions contributions. The local environmental impact is the most important of the drilling mud life cycle and is mainly linked to emissions from reserve pits, treated cuttings, and drilling phase 16″ through the Turonian and Albian aquifer. The main contributing substances are aromatic hydrocarbons fraction and metals in particular barium, zinc, antimony, arsenic, and aluminium. Concerning the comparison of the treatment scenarios, it appears that stabilisation/solidification online is the best one; it has the lowest impact score in the two dominating categories because of the waste minimisation: mud storage avoided in the reserve pit. The second best scenario is the thermal desorption which obtains the lowest impact score in carcinogen effects due to hydrocarbons reduction (<1%) and avoided impacts of recovered oil. The toxic substances fate modeling will be improved by taking into account their site-specific impact.     

建造循环经济走可持续发展道路

本文论述了建造循环经济是实现可持续发展战略的支持和基础,并提出发展循环经济必须采取的有效措施。     

Life cycle indicators for monitoring the environmental performance of European waste management

As widely recognised by EU legislation, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) is a viable approach to support sound waste management choices. In this context, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) of the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) has lead the development of macro-level, life cycle based waste management indicators to quantify and monitor the potential environmental impacts, benefits, and improvements associated with the management of a number of selected waste streams generated and treated in Europe.The waste management indicators developed make use of a combination of macro statistical waste management data combined with emissions/resource life cycle data for the different elements of the waste treatment chain. Indicators were initially calculated for the entire European Union (EU-27) and for Germany, covering several waste streams and a broad range of environmental impact categories.An indicator developed for a given waste stream captures the potential environmental impact associated with the generation and management of that waste stream. The entire waste management chain is considered, i.e. from generation to final treatment/disposal. Therefore, system boundaries for the selected waste streams include also the treatment or recycling of secondary waste (e.g. bottom ash from the incineration of household waste), and secondary products (e.g. recovered paper), as well as energy recovery.The experiences from the development of these life cycle based waste management indicators suggest that more detailed and quality-assured waste statistics are needed, especially covering the many different treatment operations and options. Also, it would be beneficial if waste statistics had a higher disaggregation level of waste categories, as well as more detailed information about waste composition. A further development of the indicators should include an increased number of waste streams, as well as calculation of the results for all Member States.     

几种农村分散式污水处理工艺效益评价研究

运用生命周期思想剖析了苏南地区多种分散型农村生活污水处理工艺的结构因子及效益组成要素,构建了包括环境效益、技术性能、经济性能3个准则在内的以13项指标组成的效益评价体系。将其应用于国家水体污染控制与治理科技重大科技专项具体工程评价。结果表明,6种工艺中蚯蚓生物滤池综合效益得分最高,其次依次是氧化沟、生物接触氧化、SBR、AO2、MBR。根据评价结果提出了组合工艺法和限制因素法2种改进方案,分析结果显示,蚯蚓生物滤池同样具有较大的改良空间。     

节能灯、白炽灯和卤钨灯全生命周期评估对比

采用全生命周期分析(LCA)的评估研究方法,全面、科学地对比分析了节能灯、白炽灯以及卤钨灯全生命周期过程中所造成的环境、资源影响,评估结果表明节能灯相对于白炽灯和卤钨灯显著降低了对环境的生态毒性影响,由于照明产品自身环境影响的特点,节能灯其突出的节电效果将显著降低白炽灯和卤钨灯对环境的各种影响。     

生命周期评价新发展与工业应用

从国际生命周期小组的统计和国内外的案例,综述了新世纪生命周期评价（LCA）的发展和工业应用现状,对存在的问题进行探讨,就如何进一步改进提出建议。     

低药耗费通试剂氧化乙二醇废水的实验研究

对排放量小，间歇排放的乙二醇废水进行费通试剂催化氧化处理的条件研究。结果表明，在合适的条件下，采用费通试剂催化氧化－－加碱凝聚分离－－处理水循环回流的工艺。ＣＯＤＣｒ去除率达９６％，处理水可稳定达标排放。此工艺具有降低药耗，提高ＣＯＤｃｒ去除率的双重效果。     

生命周期评价在过程工业用水网络设计中的应用

介绍了考虑环境因素的过程工业用水网络设计研究进展,分析了典型的过程工业水系统的特点,肯定了在整个水系统生命周期内考察用水网络设计方案环境效益的重要性,给出了生命周期评价方法在用水网络设计中应用的技术框架。     

厌氧水解-活性污泥法的生命周期能耗分析

运用生命周期分析技术可从全过程的视角识别和比较不同城市污水处理工艺在其生命周期各个阶段的能耗 ,并在此基础上提出改善其能效的措施。本文运用LCA方法对厌氧水解 -活性污泥法处理系统从其原材料开采和加工开始直至污水厂施工建设、处理运行以及废弃拆除的LC全过程能耗进行了识别和量化分析 ,并与普通活性污泥法进行了平行对照。研究结果表明 ,在微孔和穿孔管两种曝气条件下与普通活性污泥法相比 ,厌氧水解法的LC能耗分别节省 14.0 %和 17.6%。由于污泥产量较低 ,厌氧水解法的比能耗大幅度提高 67.7%～ 77.7%。