Environmental Assessment of Ammunition: the Importance of a Life-Cycle Approach

Environmental research related with military actions has been focused on the monitoring of contaminants from live-fire training and munitions disposal. It is important to take a further step and use this information to assess the environmental impacts of this contamination. In addition, it is relevant to assess the consequences of using different alternatives in a life-cycle perspective to avoid unexpected problems, and assess the hotspots of ammunition manufacturing in order to decrease the impacts in terms of other types of environmental burdens. The Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology can be employed to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts associated with munitions. LCA can assist the decision makers in answering some questions: are green ammunitions presenting lower environmental impacts than standard ones? What should be done to improve the performance of ammunitions from an environmental point of view? The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of assessing the impacts of ammunitions in a life-cycle perspective and highlight the main environmental concerns. Three applications of LCA are presented: the production and use of generic large calibre ammunition; the comparison of the production and use of four types of small calibre ammunitions; the assessment of two technologies for ammunition disposal. The conclusions drawn can aid in providing tailored and supported decisions in order to decrease the impacts of ammunitions in a life-cycle perspective