Life-cycle activity analysis, industrial ecology and the automobile: a Portuguese case study

Paulo Ferrão*, Fausto Freire** and José Amaral*

* Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal

**Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal

The implications of an optimised end of life vehicles (ELV) processing system are addressed, and its contribution to promote scale factors in the benefits associated to increased recycling rates in a small country as Portugal are discussed. In particular, the mass flows associated with the current infrastructure for ELV processing in Portugal are compared against those expected by implementing new policies and technologies defined in the context of Industrial Ecology.

The crucial relevance of recycling activities associated with the automotive sector, to the overall recycling industry in a small country, is highlighted, and a the use of a new mathematical programming decision model, LCAA— Life Cycle Activity Analysis (LCAA)—, for the optimisation of the required infrastructures in economical and environmental terms is demonstrated making use of a case study based on the Portuguese used tire market.

The adoption of an Industrial Ecology based strategy for ELV processing, contributes to accomplish the main targets defined by the Proposal for a Council Directive on end of life vehicles 97/358 in the European Union.

Moreover, it is shown that, in a small country, the impact of this strategy in promoting recycling activities is increased by a scale factor associated with the predominance of the recyclable materials flow derived from auto dismantling, for products as plastics, when compared to the conventional sources for this materials in the economy. This has shown to be crucial to promote the economic feasibility of new recycling industries and thus the additional cost in dismantling operations can be largely recovered in subsequent economic activities.

On the other hand, the feasibility and potential of the LCAA methodology for optimising the life cycle of products, with emphasis in alternative end of life processing activities was demonstrated. Integrated economic, environmental, energy and material-product system models are developed and applied.

The LCAA methodology allows the analysis of "What if scenarios" and, in particular, the consequences of the prohibition of tires landfill was analysed in the Portuguese economy context. As a result, alternative end-of-life activities were quantified and it was concluded that 10627 ton/year of landfill were avoided with an additional reduction of 5% in energy use in the total life cycle of tires.