INVESTIGADORES
ARENA alejandro pablo
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
LCA- C&DW: An environmental assessment tool in the waste management of the construction sector
Autor/es:
MERCANTE, IT; BOVEA, M.; ARENA, A.P.
Lugar:
Mendoza
Reunión:
Conferencia; Vth International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment CILCA 2013; 2013
Institución organizadora:
Grupo CLIOPE, Universidad Tecnologica Nacional, Facultad Regional Mendoza
Resumen:
Aim. The management of solid wastes has evolved significantly over the past 20 years. Different methodologies have been developed to facilitate the evaluation of management strategies. However, all of them refer to domestic wastes, and include European databases. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of a new computational tool, named LCAC& DW, that allows analyzing the environmental impact of the wastemanagement systems in construction and demolition (C&DW). Methodology. Based on 1t of C&DW as a functional unit, the life cycle of the waste has been divided into stages. These stages include collection, transportation, sorting, recycling and waste disposal. The LCA-C&DWtool considers also the avoided burdens due to recycling. The main variables that characterize the process at each stage have been identified. These sub-models are combined to represent a complete C&DW management system. The inventory data come from both primary sources and literature and specialized databases. The Impact assessment results are summarized in six environmental categories: global warming, acidification, eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, natural resources depletion and photochemical smog. Results. The application of this model allows estimating and analyzing the environmental profile of different C&DW management alternatives. A flexible tool, suitable for adaptation to regional inventory data has been obtained. Conclusions. The LCA-C&DW model provides a tool which support regional and municipal C&DW management planners on the environmental decision making process. Also, it allows to evaluate the last life-cycle stage of buildings or civil infrastructures and to integrate it into their complete life cycle