| what are the four main stages of the life cycle assessment? | 1. extracting and processing the raw materials
2. manufacturing and packaging your product
3. using your product
4. disposing of it |
| what are some of the problems with extracting and processing the raw materials? | it can damage the local environment eg cutting down trees and digging huge mines.
it can also indirectly damage the environment because huge amounts of energy is required like when extracting metals from their ores or from fractional distillation of crude oil and lots of pollutants can be released. |
| what are the three main problems with manufacturing and packaging? | energy use, the release of pollution like carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride and lastly waste products which can be used as raw materials for something else but usually they are useless. and they have to be disposed of. |
| when considering the impact of using the product what two things do we need to look at? | 1. how much damage it does during its lifetime
- eg how polluting driving a car is or how much damage fertilizers do when they run of into the environment
2. how long the product is used for
- eg if you buy a really nice bag and you use it a thousand times that is different to a paper bag which you will only use maybe once |
| what else do we have to consider? | how we dispose of the product
- if we place it in landfill then that could take up space that could have been used for nature and chemicals might seep out into the surrounding ecosystems
- if we burn the waste products they might release pollutants into the atmosphere
- either way, we have to use energy to transport the items to the landfill or to the incinerator |
| what are the raw materials for plastic and paper bags? | plastic bags
- crude oil
paper bag
- wood |
| manufacturing and packaging for plastic and paper bags | plastic bag
- hydro carbons from fractional distillation
- cracked to make alkenes
-polymerisation
paper bag
- timber has to be pulped
- loads of energy
- loads of waste |
| using the product for plastic and paper bags | plastic
- can be reused multiple times
paper bag
- single use |
| disposing of paper and plastic bags | plastic
- non biodegradable
- take up space in landfill
- get into the wild and harm animals
paper
- biodegradable
- non toxic |
| what are the limitations of the life cycle assessment? | 1. making products involves loads of steps
- almost impossible to quantify them
- even if u do find all the data like how much energy was used you will still not be able to asses the harm of each and every step
2. because the life cycle assessment is so complex they can easily be manipulated to support a company
which may be done to give the company positive advertising |
