Process engineering for recycled polymers: Life-cycle assessment

Experts inform that life-cycle assessment has emerged as an important for decisions regarding recycling of polymers. LCA is used defensively to justify recycling and offensively to improve products and processes and helps to select the appropriate polymers and processes for various applications. all operations that contribute to the life cycle of the product or process fall within the system boundaries of the LCA system. The environment is the surroundings for the system and the inputs to the system are the natural resources, including energy resources. The quantification of energy and raw material requirements, air emissions, waterborne effluents, solid waste, and other environmental released throughout the life cycle of a product is referred to as life-cycle inventory (LCI).