Chemistry C9 Life Cycle Assessments

What is a Life cycle assessment?

A life cycle assessment puts a number on the environmental impact of a product

How are polymers made?

Polymers are produced through crude oil

Oil is extracted from ground and transported to oil refineries

Hydrocarbons separated and then cracked

Polymer now produced

Takes a lot of energy, generated by burning fossil fuels leading to climate change

How are metals extracted?

Ore dug out of mine and extracted for processing

Metal extracted from ore can produce toxic waste

When raw materials produced we can manufacture package and transport it

Requires energy, release waste

Disposal of products after life

Many products contain harmful chemicals

Requires a lot of energy to transport used products for disposal

Compare LCA of plastic and paper bags

Plastic bags are produced using chemicals from crude oil

Paper bags are made from wood

Crude oil non renewable, trees are renewable

Extracting crude oil can be harmful to habitats

Crude oil and wood need to be chemically processed requires a lot of energy releasing waste

Plastic shopping bags strong, paper weak

Plastic is non-biodegradable. major form of litter in landfills

Problems of LCA

Cant be certain of how damaging waste products are to the environment

May have to make estimates/ judgements not always accurate

Can be biased