期刊
JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY
卷 16, 期 3, 页码 324-333出版社
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00483.x
关键词
aluminum; end of life; industrial ecology; life cycle assessment (LCA); recycling allocation; scrap
资金
- National Science Foundation [CMMI 0628162]
A healthy debate on the treatment of metals recycling in the life cycle assessment (LCA) community has persisted for more than a decade. While no clear consensus across stakeholder groups has emerged, the metals industry has endorsed a set of recycling facts that support a single approach, end-of-life recycling, for evaluating the environmental benefits of metals recycling. In this article we draw from research conducted in several disciplines and find that three key tenets of the metals industry capture the theoretical potential of metals recycling from a metallurgical standpoint rather than reflecting observed behavior. We then discuss the implications of these conclusions on environmental emissions from metals production and recycling. Evidence is provided that, contrary to the position of the metals industry, metals are not necessarily recycled at high rates, are recycled only a small number of times before final disposal, and are sometimes limited in recycling potential by the economics of contaminant removal. The analysis concludes that metal recycled from old scrap largely serves as an imperfect substitute for primary metal. As a result, large-scale displacement of primary production and its associated environmental emissions is currently limited to a few specific instances.
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