Life Cycle Assessment and Recycling — AQA GCSE Chemistry
A life cycle assessment evaluates the environmental impact of a product, and recycling reduces the use of finite resources.
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
A life cycle assessment (LCA) examines the environmental impact of a product over its whole life, in four stages:
- Extracting and processing raw materials.
- Manufacturing and packaging.
- Using and operating the product during its lifetime.
- Disposal at the end of its life — including transport at every stage.
LCAs consider the use of resources, energy and water and the production of waste and pollutants.
Limitations of LCAs
- Some impacts are easy to quantify (e.g. the amount of CO₂ produced).
- Others, like the effects of pollutants, require value judgements, so LCAs can be subjective or biased — for example when used selectively in advertising. You should be able to critically evaluate LCA claims.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Using fewer resources (reducing), reusing products, and recycling all conserve finite resources, save energy and reduce waste:
- Recycling metals is often done by melting and recasting them; it saves the energy and ore needed to extract new metal, and reduces mining.
- Glass bottles can be reused or crushed, melted and remoulded.
Exam tips
- Learn the four LCA stages (raw materials → manufacture → use → disposal, plus transport).
- Recognise that some impacts need value judgements, so LCAs can be biased.
- Recycling saves both energy and finite resources.
- Be ready to evaluate an LCA critically.