End of Life Flashcards
What are 4 environmental preferences to end of life.
(arrow pointing down from refuse to recycling) Refuse Reuse Repair (remanufacture) Recycling (composting)
What are 2 environmental NON preferences for end of life options
Abandoning landfills
Incineration
When is end of life?
A point in a product’s life in which its current state no longer is useful
Name two products and tell us when is end of life?
Aluminum cans: gets recycled to make another aluminum product or reaches end of
Primary use. End of life occurs if thrown to the trash as well
Asphalt : moment it becomes recycled is the moment it starts new LCA and reaches EOL
When is the end of life for asphalt?
Similar to aluminum can except asphalt gets recycled into new asphalt.
Asphalt end of life is midpoint between new and old
When is end of life for plastic bottles?
Usually after we finish using the bottle once. A lot of it actually doesn’t get recycled
but with no further use we conclude this to be its end of life. The end of life in
such cases when they are not recycled would be in the landfill they end up on
Name 3-4 sources for solid waste. (industry and household waste).
Industrial:
Hazardous waste
Industrial waste (manufacturing and service organizations)
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste
Waste from water and wastewater utilities (sludge)
Household
Municipal solid waste (MSW) – household waste
Hazardous waste
What do we refer to as conventional disposal
Landfill- throwing things away in an organized manner
What are three characteristics of conventional disposals?
In urban areas we have a shortage of landfills In rural areas, “legacy” landfills escape scrutiny while urban get more scrutiny
Landfills have become expensive
Landfills have become undesirable.
What are characteristics of engineered landfill and how do they differ from other landfills.
Engineered landfills have been designed with containment of trash in mind. There
Are liners upon which the trash sits. These liners include clay, and engineered materials
Like polyethylene. This helps prevent trash from reaching groundwater and in general
Helps keep it contained in one location
What are 3 specific problems with engineering landfills.
Methane released still
has a finite max capacity
waste of space (land unuseful for other applications)
trash will stay in the landfill and we don’t want to use expensive land
draw rats and vermin
Long term we don’t know how they will turn out in 20 years in terms of general impacts
Landfills are a major source of what type of emissions?
Methane
What can you do with compost (organic waste) stuck in landfill?
Make fertalizer
Recycling VS reuse?
Reuse: in general doesn’t need a lot of intervention. It doesn’t have a large energy input.
We may have low technology intervention but not as heavy as recycling
Example: recycled glass milk jars. They get washed and reused.
Recycling: always has energy and other inputs (like technology). we change
physical appearance and use energy and technology to do this.
Example: recycling cans. We don’t reuse them we recycle them to smelt them and
Create a new product
Name 2 issues associated with recycling.
Definition of recycling changes place to place (city to city country to country)
Incineration: EU considers it recycling while US does not.
Either integral or nonintegral part of manufacturing.
Is it worth $ efficiency
