Comparative life cycle assessment of pervious concrete production in Malaysia with natural and recycled aggregate

Current common practices for concrete production by the construction industry in Malaysia are the use of raw materials and the disposing of construction and demolition waste to landfill. These practices have caused significant environmental impacts (EIs) that could lead to serious environmental health issues. To counter these impacts, the use of sustainable materials is encouraged for concrete production. Currently, there has not been any life cycle assessment (LCA) research done in Malaysia with tested concrete mixes and definite distances from facilities to sites. This study aims to incorporate both factors and prove that the use of sustainable concrete with recycled aggregate would decrease the EI. LCA methodology has been adopted, for comparative analysis on common practices and a sustainable approach toward pervious concrete production in Malaysia. LCA was conducted using the Gabi software, and the chosen life cycle impact assessment for this study is the CML 2001 method focusing on global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EP), acidification potential (AP), human toxicity potential (HTP) and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP). From the study, it can be concluded that although the differences between the scenarios are not highly significant, the highest difference of impact by conventional scenario with the sustainable scenarios is eutrophication potential by 3.8%. The differences between the conventional and the sustainable approach of GWP, HTP and POCP are 1.4, 2.5 and 1.4%. The sustainable scenario is the most favorable scenario by having a lesser EI for all impacts except acidification potential which was greater than the conventional scenario by 1.4%. This confirms that even though the use of recycled aggregate requires more process and distance, it would be still an advantageous approach compared to disposing the construction and demolition waste to landfill.