Evaluation of the effect of automotive bumper recycling by life-cycle inventory analysis

This paper describes a case study of the application of life-cycle inventory analysis to automotive bumper recycling. Two scenarios of bumper recycling are compared. One is “bumper-to-bumper recycling,” in which we recycle bumpers into more bumpers. The other is “cascade recycling,” in which bumpers are recycled into different parts of a car with a lower function. Inventory analysis is applied to both these recycling scenarios by analyzing the stages of acquiring natural resources, manufacturing materials, and parts, disposal, and recycling. We chose air emission, solid waste, and fossil fuel resources as items of the inventory analysis. We quantified the effect of reductions in the environmental load by recycling bumpers, and found that reductions in the environmental load were larger with cascade recycling than with bumper-to-bumper recycling based on current conditions. Received: February 2, 2000 / Accepted: April 21, 2000