Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a technique that allows the
comparison of the environmental impacts of products or services
across their entire life cycle.
LCA looks at the movement of materials and energy through the
system, from the time you extract the raw materials from the
environment, through the manufacture, use, and final
disposal. This provides quantitative data to identify the
potential environmental impacts of the product or service on the
environment.
LCA has been more commonly applied to products, but it also a
very powerful tool for assessing the environmental impacts of
services such as waste management. It is in the field of strategic
waste planning that SEPA have primarily used LCA.
Comparing the outcome of assessments of different waste
management scenarios provides quantitative data for the
decision making process. This would include for example, comparing
different methods of managing a variety of mixed municipal waste
streams, comparing waste technologies, comparing transport options
of waste, identify impacts of specific waste materials.
LCA does not however make decisions for you. It is a tool to
assist the waste decision making process and a range of factors
have to be taken into account as well. The Best Practical Environmental Option (BPEO)
decision making process as applied to the National Waste Plan and
the Area Waste Plans brought together a range of criteria, such as
social, economic, deliverability criteria, non-quantifiable
environmental impacts, and LCA data to make the final decision on
future waste management systems in Scotland.
SEPA actively promoted the use of LCA in the development and
review of area BPEO's for municipal waste, and will be providing
LCA support to the Scottish Government in the review of the NWP
through the use of the LCA software WRATE. We are also identifying
other LCA options for Commercial and Industrial wastes, and
interact with LCA users at UK and International level.