Special Report
A Cradle to Grave Approach: An Effective Solution for
Reduction in Environmental Pollution
SAMPATRAO D. MANJARE
Chemical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences (BITS), Pilani, Goa Campus, Zuari Nagar, Goa.
Fax: 0832-5643017. Email: manjare@gmail.com
ANEES Y. KHAN
Chemical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani, Rajasthan, India.
ABSTRACT
Due to the environmental awareness
among the people, industries have
started to shift their attention from pol-
lution remediation to pollution preven-
tion. Industries and businesses have
started to assess how their activities
affect the environment. Society has be-
come concerned about the issues of
natural resource depletion and environ-
mental degradation.
Many businesses have responded to
this awareness by providing ‘greener’
products and using ‘greener’ processes.
The environmental performance of
products and processes has become a
key issue, which is why some compa-
nies are investigating ways to minimize
their effects on the environment. Many
companies have found it advantageous
to explore ways of moving beyond com-
pliance using pollution prevention strat-
egies and environmental management
systems to improve their environmen-
tal performance.
One such tool is called life cycle as-
sessment (LCA).
This concept considers the entire
life cycle of a product. The complex
interaction between a product and the
environment is dealt with in the LCA
method. LCA systematically describes
and assesses all flows to and from na-
ture, from a cradle to grave perspec-
tive.
Chemical Weekly October 24, 2006
This article provides an introductory
overview of LCA. The uses of and major
components of LCA and how LCA is the
most effective environmental perfor-
mance tool for industries and business
activities are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Environmental issues have gained
greater public and legal scrutiny in the
past 25 years. The public has become
more aware and interested in the con-
sumption of goods and services and
their impact on the natural resources
and the quality of the environment. In
the past 12 years, an increasing num-
ber of firms have been shifting their
focus from remediation of pollutants
to pollution prevention. This has in-
cluded ‘green’ design activities and
replacing some materials and manu-
facturing processes with more eco-
friendly ones.
These efforts on behalf of the com-
panies have drastically reduced the
levels of industrial pollution. Indus-
try is realizing that the impact of a
product on the environment starts
with the design and ends at the ulti-
mate disposal of the product after its
use. What considerations are made
during the design phase of a product
affects the whole life cycle. It is im-
portant to determine the environmen-
tal impacts of the manufacturing pro-
cess, the product and its ability to be
recycled.
While reducing the impact a com-
pany and its product make on the en-
vironment is a good idea, the cost as-
sociated with minimizing these im-
pacts must be considered. Environ-
mental compliance has been consid-
ered a cost of doing business and stay-
ing out of jail. The increased use of
waste minimization programmes has
not only reduced the cost of compli-
ance (which goes up over time), but
has lowered the cost of producing
products. In a number of cases, the
quality of product has improved. This,
in itself, reduces costs and improves
competitiveness of the products.
In the global marketplace, the re-
duced impact of products on the envi-
ronment has serious marketing im-
pact. Sound environmental practices
will result in designs that meet or ex-
ceed the requirement of the countries
where they will be sold. It is reason-
able therefore to consider the total
impact on the environment of a prod-
uct and plan means of reducing that
impact during the planning and design
phase of the product life cycle(1). This
is possible by utilizing Life Cycle As-
sessment (LCA) methodology, which
has been referred as the ‘green tech-
nology ’ in this paper.
This paper discusses about the
conceptual background of LCA, its
framework and also the implementa-
tion of the various phase of the metho-
dology.
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 Special
Life Cycle Assessment
LCA is a quantitative environmen-
tal performance tool, essentially
based around mass and energy bal-
ances but applied to a complete eco-
nomic system rather than a single pro-
cess. In terms of system boundary
definition, this represents an extension
to the conventional system analysis,
in which the system boundary is drawn
around the process of interest only.
Figure 1 illustrates the way in
which LCA can complement conven-
tional process analysis. While chemi-
cal or process engineering is normally
concerned with the operations within
the system 1, LCA considers the whole
material and energy supply chains, so
that the system of concern becomes
everything within system boundary 2.
The material and energy flows that
enter, exist in or leave the system in-
2 early in the design phase, the goal may
Extraction and
Materials Processing
Transportation
1 minimal disruption of an existing
Production
Transportation
Energy
Use
Figure 1: Stages in the lie cycle of a product (system boundary: 1, process analysis: 2)
186
Report
clude material and energy resources
and emissions to air, water and land.
These are often referred to as environ-
mental burdens and they arise from
activities encompassing extraction
and refining of raw materials, trans-
portation, production, use and waste
disposal of a product or process. The
potential effects of the burdens on the
environment, i.e., environmental im-
pacts, normally include global warm-
ing potential (GWP), acidification,
ozone depletion (OD), eutrophication
etc.
The LCA methodology is still under
development. At present, the method-
ology framework comprises four
phases: (2)
w Goal and Scope Definition: Select-
ing the system boundaries (Fig. 1)
to ensure that no relevant parts of
the system are omitted.
w Inventory Analysis: Performing
Disposal Disposal
Transportation
Re-use or
recycling
Transportation
Waste
mass and energy balances to quan-
tify all material and energy inputs,
wastes and emissions from the
system, i.e., the environmental
burdens.
w Impact Assessment: Aggregating
the environmental burdens quanti-
fied in the inventory analysis into
a limited set of recognized environ-
mental impact categories, such as
global warming, acidification,
ozone depletion, etc.
w Interpretation: Using the results to
reduce the environmental impacts
associated with the product or pro-
cess.
Goal and Scope Definition
The most common LCA goal is to
conduct an assessment of the envi-
ronmental attributes of a specific
product or process and to derive infor-
mation from that assessment on how
to improve the environmental perfor-
mance. If this exercise is conducted
be to compare two or three alterna-
tive designs. If the design is forma-
lized, the product is in the manufac-
ture, or the process is in operation, the
goal can probably be no more than to
achieve modest changes in environ-
mental attributes at minimal cost and
operation(1).
Scope definition refers to what is
included and excluded from each step
in the process. The scope plays the
major role in the effort, time, and ex-
pense that will be involved in the LCA.
If confined to the subset of life stages
or a limited selection of impacts, the
LCA will be much more efficiently car-
ried out.
The results may be a report of lim-
ited usefulness, however, if potentially
important factors have been omitted.
Chemical Weekly October 24, 2006
 Special
Pollution
Pollution
Prevention
Prevention
Resource
Resource Life Cycle
Life Cycle Economic
Economic
conservation
conservation Assessment
Assessment System
System
Sustainable
Sustainable
Ecosystem
Ecosystem
Figure 2: Life cycle goals
Nonetheless, experienced assessors which is defined as amount of prod-
often opt for restricting the LCA scope uct, material, or service to which the
in order to increase the tractability. LCA is applied. This definition be-
Their concept is that significant ben- comes especially important when two
efits can often come from a limited rather dissimilar items are being com-
LCA(1). It is, in fact, not assured that pared. The choice of the functional unit
more substantial benefits will emerge is not straightforward, and it requires
from more extensive LCA, and an LCA the knowledge of way in which the
so broadly scoped that its successful product, material, or service will be
completion is uncertain may turn out used, the actual function that is being
to yield no benefits at all. satisfied, and perhaps even the antici-
pated longevity of the item being as-
The outcome of the LCA study can sessed. A good choice can support a
have a positive impact on human useful LCA outcome; a poor choice may
health, the ecosystem, and natural re- render the LCA essentially meaning-
sources, as shown in the Figure 2. less.
It should be apparent that the Inventory Analysis
choice of LCA boundaries can have
enormous influence on the time scale, It refers to performing mass and
cost, and tractability of the LCA. The energy balances to quantify all mate-
best guidance that can be given is that rial and energy inputs, wastes and
the boundaries should be consistent emissions from the system i.e., the
with the goals of the exercise. The environmental burdens. It should be
goals of the LCA thus define much of noted that inventory in LCA refers to
the LCA scope, as well as the depth of the raw materials inputs and emission
the inventory and impact analysis ac- outputs, rather than to a quantity of
tivities. stored materials. After the scale of the
LCA has been established by defining
Functional unit can become crucial the scope, necessary data is collected.
when actually implemented in LCA, The process is begun by constructing,
Chemical Weekly October 24, 2006
Report
in cooperation with the design and
manufacturing team, an inventory flow
diagram. The aim is to list, at least
qualitatively, but preferably quantita-
tively, all inputs and outputs of the
materials and energy throughout most
or all life stages.
The cataloging of inputs and out-
puts must have an objective. The spe-
cific objectives for conducting the in-
ventory include, but are not limited to,
the following (3):
w Compare input and output associ-
ated with alternative products,
materials, or processes.
w Determine points within the life
cycle or given process where the
greatest reduction in resource re-
quirements and fugitive emissions
might be achieved.
w Establish a comprehensive base-
line.
w Assist in training personnel re-
sponsible for reducing the environ-
mental impacts associated with
product or processes.
w Assist in the substantiation of
product claims about reducing
their impact on the environment.
w Supply information for the evalua-
tion of public policy affecting re-
source uses, recycling, or re-
leases.
The obtaining of raw materials and
the manufacturing stages can be and
usually are complex. Because of this
we can establish sub-boundary condi-
tions for these activities. An example
is shown in Figure 3. In this figure the
manufacturing boundary has included
three fundamental steps i.e., material
manufacture, product processing and
packaging and distribution.
Figure 4 shows more specifically
about preparation of inventory for sul-
phur dioxide gas treatment with lime-
stone. Block diagram representations
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 Special Report

w Replicable: The sources of informa-

tion and methodology are suffi-
Raw Material ciently described or referenced so
Materials Manufacture the same results could be obtained
by a skilled person and evidence
would be available to explain any
deviation.
Product Products w Scientific: Scientific based analy-
Processing &
sis is used to obtain and process
Energy Wastes
the data.
w Comprehensive: All significant ma-
Packaging & terials and energy uses and waste
Distribution releases are included. Any element
missing because of data unavail-
ability or cost and time are clearly
Figure 3: Manufacturing stage documented.
w Details: The inventory is conducted
SO2 in a manner and to a level of detail
commensurate with the purpose of
study.
Limestone
SO2 w Peer reviewed: If the study results
CO2
Process water Limestone scrubbing with forced oxidation Sludge are to be used in public manner,
Cooling water and filtration
Wastewater they should be peer reviewed us-
Electricity (Including wet gas cleaning)
ing accepted protocol.
w Useful: The users of the study can
make appropriate decisions in ar-
Saleable gypsum eas covered by inventory. Any limi-
tation regarding the utility of the
Figure 4: Raw materials, utilities, products and waste per ton of SO2 treated for
study should be clearly noted.
limestone scrubbing options

The meeting of these criteria

are helpful for making material and
energy balances more clear and tan-
gible. Input and output material
streams are shown with the help of
arrows. These block diagrams can be
used for breaking the system into sub-
systems.
The use of this type of modeling fa-
cilitates both simple and complex pro-
cesses and systems(3). The model
makes use of data gathering and
checksheets for easier understanding
and minimizes the missed data. A
sample checksheet is shown in Table
1. Because the user may want to de-
termine where the opportunities are in
the product stream to minimize envi-
ronmental impacts, this method can
provide a less costly means of analy-
sis and data gathering than conven-
tional methods.
Spreadsheets are also useful for data
integration as shown in Table 2, giving
idea about the complete process.
It is recognized that inventories
will vary from screening to extremely
technical and practical as possible. To
be useful tool, however, a life cycle in-
ventory should meet, as a minimum,
the following criteria(1):
w Quantitative: All data should be
quantified and documented with
suitable quality control. Any as-
sumptions in the data and method-
ology must be specified.
should make the life cycle inventory
report useful, technically supportable,
unbiased, and applicable.
Impact Assessment
Quantitative information on ma-
terials and energy flows is acquired
in the inventory stage of the LCA.
Now the environmental influences on
the activities revealed by the LCA in-
ventory analysis on the specific en-
vironmental properties must be ac-
curately assessed, and the relative
changes in the affected environmen-
tal properties must be given some
sort of priority ranking. Together,
these steps constitute LCA’s impact
assessment.

188 Chemical Weekly October 24, 2006

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tion of burdens, that is, of potential

Table 1
impacts.
Sample checksheet
Data Checksheet Table 3 shows the environmental
Project impact categories.
Name:__________________________________________________
Investigator: _________________________________________________ The impact assessment can be
Date: ___________________________________________________ structured according to the following
Reference no. : _______________________________________________ steps:
Project ID no.: ________________________________________________
Company: ________________________________________________ Classification
Input items Quantity Units It begins with the raw data from
Raw materials kgs/litres the inventory analysis on flows of ma-
Energy KW/ Hp/ MJ terials and energy. Given that data, the
Other classification steps consists of iden-
Output items Quantity Units tifying environmental concerns sug-
Materials kgs/litres gested by the inventory analysis
Energy KW/ Hp/ MJ flows. Some of the pollutants emitted
Other during product manufacturing, use or
Assessing environmental influ- pact on regional smog, and a substan- reuse are given here.
ences is complicated procedure, but tial impact on stratospheric ozone
it can be, in principle at least, be per- depletion. These pollutants are classified as: car-
formed by employing stressors, which bon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (N2O),
are items identified in the inventory For example, lead in motor vehicle methane (CH4), volatile organic compounds
analysis that have the potential to pro- exhaust is a stressor because lead is (VOCs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chlo-
duce changes in the environmental the systematic poison for animals and rinated hydrocarbons (HC), sulphur dioxide
properties. humans. The relationship among stres- (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), hydrochloric
sors and the environment are devel- acid, ammonia (NH3), hydrogen fluoride
Conceptually, however, the needed oped by the environmental science (HF), phosphate ion (PO43-), phosphorous
stressor relationships can be imag- community, and are not always avail- (P), alcohols, ketones, ethers, olefins,
ined to established and available for able with the degree of detail and pre- acetylenes, aromatic and aldehydes.
use. By combining LCA inventory re- cision required. Thus, the first stage
sults with stressor relationships, a of LCA impact assessment is the iden- Characterization
manufacturing process might be found, tification of stressors and environmen-
for example, to have a minimal impact tal concerns to which they are related. It is process of combining different
on local water quality, a modest im- The result of this stage is an estima- stressor-impact relationships into a

Table 2
Sample spreadsheet for data integration
Purpose: What is being studied? Why?
Scope/ Limitation: What are the boundaries? Assumptions?
Inputs Outputs Other
Process no. Air Water Materials Energy Air Water Materials Energy
Raw materials
Packaging
Products
Wastes
Energy

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 Special Report

tion of the product under study to na-

Table 3
Environmental life cycle assessment categories for impacts(4)
Enhancement of the greenhouse effect
Acidification Potential
Human toxicity
Photochemical Oxidant Formation
Depletion of biotic resources
Noise
Corrosion
Odour
common framework. For example, on
a time scale of 100 years the contri-
bution of 1-kg methane to global warm-
ing is 42 times as high as the emis-
sion of 1-kg CO 2. This means that if
the characterization factor of CO 2 is1;
the characterization factor of CH 4 is 42.
Thus, the impact category indicator
result for global warming can be cal-
culated by multiplying the life cycle
inventory result with the characteriza-
tion factor.
The above-mentioned pollutants
are characterized in Table 5.
Localization
It is the operation of comparing en-
vironmental impacts occurring in dif-
ferent regions with different charac-
teristics. For example, the process of
localization attempts to compare the
emission of 1-kg of moderately toxic
material into a pristine ecosystem
with the impact of the same emission
into a highly polluted ecosystem.
Valuation
It is process of assigning weight-
ing factors to the different impact cat-
Environmental Index =
 magnitude of category i for product under study
∑  magnitude of category i from all man − made sources within specified region 
 
Depletion of ozone layer
Nitrification
Ecotoxicity
Depletion of abiotic resources
Waste heat
Damage of ecosystem & landscapes
Visibility
Victims
egories based on their perceived rela-
tive importance as set by social con-
sensus. For example, as assessor or
some international organization might
choose to regard ozone depletion im-
pacts as twice as importance as loss
of visibility, and apply weighting fac-
tors to the normalzed impacts accord-
ingly.
The most contentious aspect of
LCA methodology is the evaluation
phase arising from the selection of the
relative weightings for various envi-
ronmental effects. One approach to a
single index in the evaluation phase
has been described by Annema (6). In
this method, the score for each cat-
egory from the classification step is
divided by the national score for that
category.
The resulting fractions are then
added for all classification categories.
Thus,
The national scores for each clas-
sification category are calculated us-
ing pertinent national emission con-
sumption data. The approach involves
some inherent weighting classification
categories derived from the contribu-

tional effects for each category.
An important consideration that
plays a role in the prioritization of im-
pacts is that a single impact gener-
ally has many stressors, and a single
stressor has many impacts. As a con-
sequence, the industry-environment
interaction generally embodies a sum-
mation of impacts of different magni-
tudes and different spatial and tempo-
ral scales.
The result is that a choice between
two design options may involve
tradeoffs such as choosing between
having a modest influence on a single
impact of high importance or smaller
influences on several impacts of lower
importance.
One approach of linking stressors
and impacts is a series of matrix dis-
plays, the axes of matrices being Tech-
nological Activities (specific activities
or industries that generate stressors
such that gases or particles) and Criti-
cal Properties (specific impacts). A
matrix of this type for atmospheric
concerns is shown in Table 6. To con-
struct this figure, a critical atmo-
spheric concern such as ‘precipitation
acidification’ and its direct and indi-
rect chemical causes are linked with
sources responsible for initiating
those interactions.
The result is a matrix that shows
the impact of each potential source of
atmospheric change on each critical
atmospheric component. A rough quali-
tative assessment of significance is
included. The diagram also includes
estimates of reliability, an important
component of an assessment effort.
The matrix is constructed with sepa-
rate rows for industrial operations and
for the major energy generating pro-
cesses, and can obviously expanded

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Interpretation
Table 4
Classification of the pollutants (5)
This step essentially combines the find-
Impact Categories Pollutants ing from the inventory analysis and impact
Global warming Carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (N2O), methane assessment to develop conclusions and
(CH4), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) recommendations. It uses the goals and
Ozone depletion CFCs, chlorinated HCs scope of LCA, as the basis for the develop-
Acidification potential Sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), ment of conclusions and recommendations.
hydrochloric acid, ammonia (NH3), hydrogen It results in a report containing methodolo-
fluoride (HF) gies, data sources, calculations, and find-
Eutrophication NOx, NH4+, N, phosphate ion (PO43-), phosphorous (P). ings of LCA in a format consistent with the
Photochemical oxidant VOCs including alkanes, halogented HCs, alcohols, goals for the study.
potential ketones, ethers, olefins, acetylenes, aromatic and
aldehydes CONCLUSIONS

in much greater details than is shown here.
The simplest impact assessments of Table
6 involve only a single cell of the matrix.
A typical example is the study of the
impacts of a single source, such as a new
coal-fired power station, on a single criti-
cal atmospheric component, such as acidi-
fication potential. For the purpose of policy
and management, it is desirable to assess
the impacts of a single source on several
critical environmental properties. The coal
combustion study noted above would fall
into this category if the impacts were as-
sessed not only on acidification, but also
on photochemical oxidant production, ma-
terial corrosion, visibility degradation,
heavy metal emissions, etc. If desired, the
columns could be summed in some way
(such as assigning numbers to potential
importance ratings) to give the net impact
of the ensemble of sources on each critical
property. Similarly, the rows could be
summed in some way to give the net effect
of each source on the ensemble of proper-
ties.
LCA is a quantitative environmental
performance tool, essentially based around
mass and energy balances, but applied to a
complete economic system rather than a
single process. LCA has two main objec-
tives. The first is to quantify and evaluate
the environmental performance of the
process or product from cradle to
grave. Another objective is to provide
a basis for assessing improvements
in the environmental performance of
the system. LCA includes ‘green’ de-
sign activities and replacing some

Table 5
Characterization of pollutants (5)
Classification Pollutants Characterization
Global warming Carbon dioxide (CO2), Nitrogen oxide (N2O), Global warming is expressed relative to CO2.
Methane (CH4), Volatile organic compounds
(VOCs)

Ozone depletion CFCs, chlorinated HCs. Ozone depletion is expressed relative to CFC-11.

Acidification potential
Eutrophication
Photochemical oxidant
potential
Sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx),
hydrochloric acid, ammonia (NH3), hydrogen
fluoride (HF)
NOx, NH4+, N, phosphate ion (PO43-),
phosphorous (P)
VOCs including alkanes, halogented HCs,
alcohols, ketones, ethers, olefins, acetylenes,
aromatic and aldehydes
Acidification potential is expressed relative
to SO2
Eutrophication potential is expressed relative
to phosphate ion
Photochemical oxidant potential is expressed
relative to ethylene

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Table 6: An initial ensemble assessment of impacts on the global atmosphere (3)
materials and manufacturing processes
with more environmentally friendly ones.
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1. Caimborne D., Environmental Life Cy-
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2. ISO 14040 (1997), Environmental
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(Centre of Environmental Science,
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Management-Life Cycle Assessment
— Part 1: Principles and Framework.
ISO
Chemical Weekly October 24, 2006