Life Cycle Assessment of Steel Products Incorporating Steel's Recyclability

by "Toru Ono, Teruo Okazaki, Yoko Tanaka, Mio Kitayama, Shiro Watakabe, Motoshi Terao"

Publisher - "Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, Nippon Steel & Sumikin Research Institute Corporation, JFE Steel Corporation, The Japan Iron and Steel Federation"

Category - Engineering & IT

"In evaluating the environmental impact of a product, a concept called ""Life Cycle Thinking"" is important. That means, in addition to the impacts at the use phase of a product, it is critical to consider the impacts accompanying resources and energy consumption throughout the entire life cycle, including the manufacturing stage and the final disposal and recycling of the product after the product's life has ended. Iron and steel materials have excellent recycling characteristics, where they are recovered as scrap after the products have reached the end of life and are reborn as new steel products. Scrap recycling contributes to reduce the amount of natural resources mined, waste disposal and environmental burden at the time of production. Therefore this contribution of scrap recycling must be properly evaluated. This presentation clarifies the conditions for sustainable material recycling and then describes the characteristics of steel materials and the LCA methodology (the worldsteel LCA methodology) which reflects those characteristics. This methodology is under ISO standardization since July 2015 toward the completion in 2018, aiming to gain a broader understanding of all steel users with regards to the LCA methodology of steel products incorporating steel’s recyclability."

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