A Cumulative Energy Demand indicator (CED), life cycle based,for industrial waste management decision making

Life cycle thinking is a good approach to be used for environmental decision-support, although the complexity of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies sometimes prevents their wide use. The purpose of this paper is to show how LCA methodology can be simplified to be more useful for certain applications.In order to improve waste management in Catalonia (Spain), a Cumulative Energy Demand indicator (LCA-based) has been used to obtain four mathematical models to help the government in the decision of preventing or allowing a specific waste from going out of the borders. The conceptual equations and all the subsequent developments and assumptions made to obtain the simplified models are presented.One of the four models is discussed in detail, presenting the final simplified equation to be subsequently used by the government in decision making.The resulting model has been found to be scientifically robust, simple to implement and, above all, fulfilling its purpose: the limitation of waste transport out of Catalonia unless the waste recovery operations are significantly better and justify this transport.     

Towards sustainable production and use of charcoal in Kenya: exploring the potential in life cycle management approach

The study seeks to demonstrate the potential role that industrial ecology could play towards energy poverty reduction and environmental conservation in Kenya through sustainable charcoal production and consumption. This is achieved through an exploration of the application of the life cycle management (LCM) concept that identifies various opportunities for technological intervention for energy and environmental conservation and reduction of material and energy losses. It also identifies opportunities for income generation at various stages of the product’s life cycle; an aspect critical in poverty reduction in developing countries. The study finds that applying LCM in the charcoal trade in Kenya can deliver social, economic and environmental benefits to developing country communities and should, therefore, be promoted. However, appropriate legal, policy and institutional frameworks must exist in these countries for this to occur.     

苏丹红Ⅰ、Ⅲ和Ⅳ对HepG-2细胞和SGC-7901细胞增殖的影响

以辽宁某地硼矿开采和加工厂的硼作业工人以及远离硼矿的背景地区的人群作为研究对象,分析了班后尿液硼浓度与日硼暴露剂量之间的关系.结果表明,班后尿硼浓度与日硼暴露剂量之间存在着显著的对数线性关系,考虑了不同人群类别的影响之后,回归方程的拟合度达到85.9%,由此确立了用班后尿硼浓度预测日硼暴露剂量的预测方程.用此预测方程对本研究2004年的受试者日硼暴露剂量进行预测,并与实测值进行了比较,结果表明平均相对偏差为13.4%,预测值与实测值之间没有显著性的差异.说明用班后尿硼浓度预测日硼暴露剂量是可行的.对2004年所有受试者的日硼暴露剂量预测结果分析表明,硼职业暴露组、社区对照组和背景对照组的日硼暴露剂量平均值分别为36.1、4.13和1.31mg/d.     

Life Cycle Assessment as Part of Sustainability Assessment for Chemicals (5 pp)

Background LCA is the only internationally standardized environmental assessment tool (ISO 14040-43) for product systems, including services and processes. The analysis is done ‘from cradle-to-grave’, i.e. over the whole life cycle. LCA is essentially a comparative method: different systems fulfilling the same function (serving the same purpose) are compared on the basis of a ‘functional unit’ - a quantitative measure of this function or purpose. It is often believed that LCA can be used for judging the (relative) sustainability of product systems. This is only partly true, however, since LCA is restricted to the environmental part of the triad ‘environment/ecology - economy - social aspects (including intergenerational fairness)’ which constitutes sustainability. Standardized assessment tools for the second and the third part are still lacking, but Life Cycle Costing (LCC) seems to be a promising candidate for the economic part. Social Life Cycle Assessment still has to be developed on the basis of known social indicators.Method and Limitations LCA is most frequently used for the comparative assessment or optimization analysis of final products. Materials and chemicals are difficult to analyse from cradle-to-grave, since they are used in many, often innumerable product systems, which all would have to be studied in detail to give a complete LCA of a particular material or substance! This complete analysis of a material or chemical is evidently only possible in such cases where one main application exists. But even if one main application does exist, e.g. in the case of surfactants (chemicals) and detergents (final products), the latter may exist in a great abundance of compositions. Therefore, chemicals and materials are better analysed ‘from cradle-to-factory gate’, leaving the analysis of the final product(s), the use phase and the ‘end-of-life’ phases to specific, full LCAs.Conclusion A comparative assessment of production processes is possible, if the chemicals (the same is true for materials) produced by different methods have exactly the same properties. In this case, the downstream phases may be considered as a ‘black box’ and left out of the assessment. Such truncated LCAs can be used for environmental comparisons, but less so for the (environmental) optimization analysis of a specific chemical: the phases considered as ‘black box’ and left out may actually be the dominant ones. A sustainability assessment should be performed at the product level and contain the results of LCC and social assessments. Equal and consistent system boundaries will have to be used for these life cycle tools which only together can fulfil the aim of assessing the sustainability of product systems.