PARENT SESSION
IP02 - Life Cycle & Sustainability: Process, Progress and Problems
Chair: Price, Ed1, 1 2531 Oak Court, White Bear Lake, MN
Co-chair: Cooper, Joyce2, 2 University of Washington, Seattle, WA
8:00 AM to 12:00 PM - Sunday, 17 November 2002
Room Room 151 G
(IP13) The use phase in the aluminum mass flow - An approach for integration.
Köther, Traute*,1, Rombach, Georg1, Friedrich, Bernd1, 1 Aachen University of Technology, Aachen, Germany
ABSTRACT- In mass flow analyses the use phase is often not adequately integrated. Above all user-related effects, life-time of products or product-systems are frequently unconsidered. Looking at the entire process chain the total demand for aluminum is important. But balancing the environmental impacts of the use phase of aluminum-bearing products such as cars, trains, window frames, or beverage cans three other targets win importance. These are the identification of environmental impacts during the use phase itself and its integration in the process chain. Using this data the third target aims at case studies which point out various user-related effects. For this purpose mass flows and induced environmental impacts of the particular product use, startup, maintenance and repair have to be quantified separately using LCA. For this targets the consideration of the multifunctional material properties is important which requires the choice of a suitable functional unit in order to reproduce all parameters. Furthermore, those mass flows have to be considered which are influenced by the user. Besides socio-economic factors the individual user behavior is determined by exogenous parameters such as distribution and availability of product information. Additionally, it is important to include the life-time of products, because the effects can only be shown after a certain time of usage or, due to the high life time of some products, by summation. On the basis of examples from the aluminum sector particular spectra of the usage are represented with focus either on user behavior, technological potential, recycling ability or life span.
Key words: LCA, Use Phase, User behavior, Aluminum