Life Cycle Assessment Explained

LIFE CYCLE Assessment (LCA) is an environmental management technique used to improve understanding and compare the impacts of products or services 'from cradle to grave'.

LCA for waste management is a specific application of LCA which evaluates the environmental consequences of waste management systems.

It considers both the direct impact on the environment of the operations of waste management facilities, for example stack emissions from an incinerator, and also the (indirect) value of recovering materials and energy (e.g. through heat recovery and electricity production).

This means environmental improvements can be made to waste management systems without the risk that the changes will cause greater impacts in other environmental media, at another time, or at another stage in the life cycle.