Cradle to gate analysis

The environmental burden covers all impacts on the environment and includes extraction of raw materials, emission of hazardous and toxic materials, land use, and disposal. In certain cases, the analysis only takes into account the burden up to the "gate" of the producing facility and, in other cases, the analysis takes into account the actual disposal of the product. In the former case, the analysis is termed a "cradle-to-gate" analysis, while in the latter case it is referred to as a "cradle-to-grave" analysis. 

FIGURE 3.2 Life cycle inventory process for cradle-to-gate analysis. 

LCI can be used to calculate the environmental impacts of producing petroleum-based plastics. The LCI for petroleum-based plastics is based on ISO 14040 and 4044 and provided by the ACC for nine plastic resins and four polyurethane procurer resins. The cradle-to-gate analysis can provide a foundation for understanding the energy requirements, GHG emissions, waste generation, and pollution with the most common petroleum-based plastics. The LCA process for polyethylene terephtha-late (PET) plastic can be used as an example (ACC LCA 2011 Nine resins). 

The LCI for the production of PET pellets in a cradle-to-gate analysis was provided by Franklin and Associates in 2011. PET plastic was produced from crude oil in a five-step process outlined in Figure 3.4. The LCA provides energy and water requirements, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation, and pollution production. 

Cradle-to-gate analysis was used. End-of-life options, conversion to plastic products, product use, and transportation to retail outlets are not considered. 

LCI can also be calculated for other plastic resins and used as a comparison. Table 3.1 presents cradle-to-gate analysis of the environmental impacts of four plastic resins that can be used for plastic applications (Cradle to Gate Life Cycle 2011). 

The first LCA study, from Boustead Consulting and Associates, compares the LCA of single-use plastic bags with single-use paper. The cradle-to-gate analysis includes the environmental impacts of plastic bags from the creation of the plastic from raw materials to plastic pellets. 

Jimenez-Gonzalez, 2000, 2003a). This methodology is transparent, well documented, and extremely flexible. Modular Gate-to-Gate (GTG) LCIs for materials can be used to construct chemical trees from an advanced material back to the cradle, and the inventories rolled-up to obtain a Cradle-to-Gate (CTG) LCI. Its utility was demonstrated for a typical, commercially successful GSK API (Curzons et al., 2001). These GTG LCI data were also available for additional analysis that led to the development of the FLA SC tool (Curzons et al., 1999). 

FIGURE 21.3 System boundary for the cradle-to-gate environmental impact analysis of lithium-ion batteries, which includes the materials production and battery assembly stages. (For color version of this figure, the reader is referred to the online version of this book.)... 

The analysis has limitations for cradle to gate and not cradle to grave. The fuel production, energy values are for data from one particular year of 2009 and not 0 averages for 3-5 years. The LCA did not consider... 

An unpublished cradle-to-gate life cycle analysis (LCA) study subcontracted to Vito (Mol, Belgium) tried to identify environmental bottlenecks of rhamnolipid and sophorolipid production and compare them with those of market reference surfactants according to the ISO 1404x series. Experimental data for the pilot plant scale were complemented with LCA data from the Vito database as well as literature data for the upscaled production scenario. In order to compare the environmental profile of these biosurfactants with market reference surfactants data were used from Zah and Hischier [18]. The Eco-Indicator 99 methodology [19] was used to determine environmental impacts. 

Eco-efficiency assessment focuses in principle on the entire life cycle, but then concentrates on specific events in a life cycle where the alternatives under consideration differ. Eco-efficiency analysis includes the cost data as well as the straight life cycle data. Eigure 5.3 shows that life cycle assessment is based on the environmental profile, which can be obtained, for example, from data provided by the plants and which includes the path from the cradle to the work-gate. On extending this approach to the entire life cycle, a life cycle assessment is obtained. Adding to these additional assessment criteria again, followed by an economic assessment, then leads to an eco-efficiency analysis (Figure 5.4). 

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