Electronic Parts/Guidelines - infoHouse

7.0 Life Cycle Assessment
7.1 Scope
This section addresses the complicated issues in understanding the impacts of packaging materials on
the environment through Life-Cycle Analysis. LCA is a method of evaluating the environmental attri-
butes of a product and/or package by listing and measuring its energy and resource use and then
quantifying its environmental impact of emissions, effluents and solid wastes throughout the course of
its life cycle.
7.2 Purpose
To add an environmental component to decision making when designing a package is to add a mind-
boggling array of topics to the decision. These topics vary from global ozone depletion to ancient
forests to endangered species to landfilling. This section will not provide all the answers for making
the best environmental decision. The purpose of this section is to show the complexity associated with
trying to determine all the environmental impacts of various materials, and the problems with com-
paring one material to another.
I 7.3 The Three "1"s of Life Cycle Assessment
1 What LCAs cannot do Is determine the ultimate environmental impact of a product or package on the
I environment. Identification of all impacts is a lengthy and arduous process. But even more difficult is
I evaluating and comparing different types of impacts--those affecting air quality compared to those
I affecting ground water, for example. So far, there is no consistent practice or agreement on how such
I arbitrary "apples to oranges" comparisons may reasonably be made.
Life cycle assessment consists of three main components sometimes called the three "1"s: inventory
analysis, impact analysis and improvement analysis. In a study conducted for the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) by Battelle and Franklin Associates Ltd., the three "1"s are described as
follows:
Inventory analysis is an "objective, data-based process of quantifying energy and raw material requlre-
ments. atmospheric emissions, waterborne emissions and solid wastes for the entire life cycle of a
product, process or activity. In the broadest sense, inventory analysis begins with the raw material
extraction and continues through the final product consumption and disposal. This component of life
cycle assessment is currently the most well developed with a methodology that has-been evolving over
a 20-year period".
Impact analysls is "a technical, quantitative, and/or qualitative process to characterize and assess the
effects of the resource requirements and environmental loadings (atmospheric and waterborne emissions.a~nd
sol~id wastes) identified in the inventory stage. The assessment should address both ecological
and human health risks, as well as such other effects as habitat modification and heat and noise
pollutlon."
Improvement analysis is a "systematic evaluation of the needs and opportunities to reduce the environ-
mental burden associated with energy and raw material use and waste emissions through the life
cycle of a product, process or activity. This analysis may include both quantitative and qualitative
measures of improvements".
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