Priority assessment of toxic substances in life cycle assessment. Part I: Calculation of toxicity potentials for 181 substances with the nested multi-media fate, exposure and effects model USES–LCA

Huijbregts, Mark A. J.; Thissen, Uwe; Guinée, Jeroen B.; Jager, Tjalling; Kalf, Dennis F.; Meent, Dik van de; Ragas, A.M.J.; Sleeswijk, Anneke Wegener; Reijnders, L.

doi:10.1016/s0045-6535(00)00030-8

Cited by 295 publications

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“…These changes are discussed briefly below. A detailed discussion can be found in the technical report underlying this paper (Huijbregts, 1999a). (ISO, 1997a), 'economic' processes, such as sewage treatment, are 'switched off ' in USES-LCA.…”

Section: Uses-lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For environmental parameters, default values in USES 2.0 were used. However, default values for the system areas of the three climate zones at the global scale and some plant properties were changed into more realistic estimates (Huijbregts, 1999a). Because the human characteristics of the exposure assessment of USES 2.0, such as food intake values, reflect worst-case assumptions, these were replaced by typical values ( An extensive literature research was performed to find representative experimental substance-specific input parameters for 181 substances and thereby avoid as much as possible estimation routines or worst-case default values.…”

Section: Input Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because transport to the stratosphere may influence tropospheric air concentrations of very air-persistent substances, it was included in USES-LCA. It was assumed that every year 1/60 th of the volume of the air in the troposphere advects to the stratosphere (Huijbregts, 1999a). 9 Soil ingestion.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, system parameters and human characteristics are set according to the continental scale in USES-LCA, although air speed and water flow are still minimised to prevent substance flow across the system boundaries (Huijbregts, 1999a); • USES-LCA, containing the toxicity potentials calculated by the adapted USES 2.0 model and using up-to-date substance-specific input data. Table 3.3 compares the results of the toxicity potentials for 10 chemicals calculated with USES 1.0 OLD, USES 1.0 NEW and USES-LCA for the initial emission compartments air, fresh water, industrial soil and agricultural soil.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Huijbregts

2002

Int J LCA

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General introductionIncreased rates of resource depletion, land use, solid waste generation and emissions of pollutants became issues of broad public concern in the beginning of the seventies (Meadows et al., 1972). Unfortunately, most of these problems are still with us today, and some of them have increased substantially (World Resources Institute, 1996). One way to decrease the environmental pressure of human activities is the environmentally improvement of production processes (Reijnders, 1996). In this respect, an important question to be answered is 'how exactly can we measure the environmentally improvement of production processes?' Environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) aims to answer that question. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the LCA framework. Although the framework itself is well-established, the application of the framework is in many aspects problematic. A brief overview of the problems associated with the actual implementation of the framework is described in second paragraph. Finally, the aim and the structure of the present thesis is outlined in the third paragraph. § 1.1 Environmental life cycle assessment Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of product systems (Heijungs et al. 1992). It considers the full life cycle of a product from resource extraction to waste disposal. LCA is generally divided into four phases: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (Figure 1.1; ISO, 1997a).In the goal and scope definition, the aim and the subject of an LCA study are determined and a 'functional unit' is defined. An example of a functional unit is 'the consumption of 100 kg apples' with, for instance, the aim to compare the environmental impacts of different agricultural production processes of apples. In the inventory analysis, for each of the product systems considered data are gathered for all the relevant processes involved in the life cycle. A product system can be considered as a combination of processes needed for the functioning of a product or service. The outcome of the inventory analysis is a list of all extractions of resources and emissions of substances caused by the functional unit for every product system considered, generally disregarding place and time of the extractions and releases. The matrix method can be used to perform the inventory analysis (Heijungs, 1996(Heijungs, , 1997 where i is the vector of environmental interventions, H is the environmental intervention matrix, representing the extractions of resources and emissions of substances per unit process, G is the technology matrix representing the inter-process flows needed for the functioning of the product system, and u is the external supply vector, related to the functional unit. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) aims to improve the understanding of the inventory result. Firstly, it is determined which extractions and emissions contribute to which impact categories. An impact category can...

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Section: Uses-lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Input Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Huijbregts

2002

Int J LCA

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“…Particularly biased marine ecotoxic results have been observed (Heijungs et al, 2007). Limitation in the characterization factors for toxicity-related impact categories have been discussed in previous studies (Huijbregts, 1999b. It should be noted with regard to the present study that the USES-LCA model for metals is debatable and moreover that missing data and knowledge impose limitations on the toxicity models, especially for the marine eco-toxicity model where no experimental data were available.…”

Section: Montreal Protocolmentioning

confidence: 61%

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Light-Weight Eco-composites

Guo¹

2012

Springer Theses

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LCA of Light-weight Eco-composites Statement of originality 2 Statement of originalityI hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person.Contributions made to the research of this thesis by others, with whom I have worked with are explicitly acknowledged. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others with data collection and modification of process-oriented model DNDC is acknowledged. Miao GuoSep 2010 LCA of Light-weight Eco-compositesAbstract 3 AbstractThe environmental profiles of novel wheat based foam materials were investigated in this thesis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. The LCAs were developed using primary data collected from industrial sources combined with new laboratory experiments supplemented with secondary data from publicly available sources.Laboratory research was conducted to obtain important missing data on WBFs for the LCA modelling, including physico-chemical parameters, biodegradability and energy recovery under anaerobic digestion conditions.Contribution analysis suggested that the emissions evolved from the wheat agroecosystem and PVOH production, together with the energy and infrastructure involved in WBF production were the major contributors to the environmental burdens of the WBF life cycle in most impact categories. The atmospheric emissions resulting from WBF degradation at the end-of-life also emerged as another important contributor to environmental impact. Amongst the diverse ‗end-of-life' scenarios examined, AD and home composting were suggested to be the optimum choices for WBF waste treatment. This research discusses two N 2 O modelling approaches and presents a method to expand the system boundary by integrating the process-oriented model DNDC for field emissions into the LCA. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the environmental profiles of agricultural products are influenced substantially by the system boundary definition. LCA of Light-weight Eco-compositesAbstract 4 Furthermore, it suggests that the ‗general rule' in LCA practice by applying an empirical model or a default emission factor (EF) could deliver unreliable LCA findings.This study also evaluated the sensitivity of the LCA results to methodology and data variations and quantified the uncertainties in the LCA outcomes arising from uncertainty in the inventory and data variability. This has led to an increase in confidence in the LCA findings. At the same time it indicates the areas where improvements in data or methods are needed in order for robust conclusions to be drawn and unbiased information to be delivered e.g. the methodological rigidity of characterization models, the IPCC Tier 1 EF uncertainty range. LCA of Light-weight Eco-compositesAcknowledgements 5

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Life‐cycle Assessment: A Tool for Identification of More Sustainable Products and Processes

Azapagic¹

2002

Handbook of Green Chemistry and Technology

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Priority assessment of toxic substances in life cycle assessment. Part I: Calculation of toxicity potentials for 181 substances with the nested multi-media fate, exposure and effects model USES–LCA

Cited by 295 publications

References 26 publications

Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Light-Weight Eco-composites

Life‐cycle Assessment: A Tool for Identification of More Sustainable Products and Processes

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