How to introduce raw material with recycled content in an EPD

Product LCA & EPD
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1

Hi,
We have few raw material that contains high recycle content. Previously we have used generic data point from Ecoinvent but now we have to take advantage of the recycle content. Can anyone suggest how this can be done in the A1-A3 stage. Many Thanks. Umi

2

Hi,

The idea here would be to find Ecoinvent data including recycled content. You can find more about that in the datacard, by going to Environmental Profile, Ipact categories, “Use of secondary materials” which will tell you how much the material is recycled

3

Hello Paul, I had a follow-up question - if there is no datapoint with recycled content in it for your material (for example, because the material is not normally recycled) what do you do then? Do you have to create a new datapoint? How do you model that? Thanks.

4

Hi Camilla,

In such case, you can consider creating your own datapoint, but you would need to have the indicators following the EN5804+A2 calculated. You can then input it as private data. To clarify, this would require you to run an LCA of this product separately.

I hope this helps,

Best regards,

Paul

5

So this private datapoint would only be available for me and my company to use? Or would/could we then publish the LCA so that everyone could use it? Would the private datapoint need to be verified in some way?

6

Hi Camilla,

The datapoint would be available only for you and your company, indeed.
The verifiers would probably ask for details about it, but no formal verification.

Hopefully, this helps,

Have a great day,

Paul

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7

Hi Paul,

So to summarise, to create a material composed of recycled content I would need to create an LCA for that process, and one of the materials would need to be the recycled material. Because that doesn’t currently exist I’d need to make a new datapoint and calculate all the environmental indicators myself? Is there somewhere that explains how to do that? This seems to require some expert knowledge right? Also, when creating the new datapoint there’s a secondary material option where you can put the amount of recycled material - does this have any impact on the results or is it just for information?

Thanks.

8

Hi Camilla,

There are a number of different options depending on the type of material, the process, and, very importantly, the data available.

  1. Use an existing dataset. Example: My raw material is stainless steel with ~50% recycled content, I could use the ecoinvent dataset for Steel production, chromium steel 18/8, hot rolled.

  2. Combine two datasets, as described here: Adding Resources with Mixed Virgin and Recycled Content Without EPDs

  3. Use a proxy dataset. Example: My raw material is recycled polypropylene, which isn’t available in ecoinvent. However, if we consider the process for recycling plastics to be similar and so the emissions would be similar, I could use the ecoinvent dataset for recycled polyethylene.

Where the material itself is considered burden-free:

  1. Use energy data, for example, if you know how much electricity is consumed in the recycling process you can model that directly in A1.

  2. Use a process dataset, for example, where ecoinvent has a waste treatment dataset that closely matches the recycling process of the material in question.

These last two may have lower levels of accuracy. As always, the more significant the material is to your LCA, the more accurate you want the data to be. If using an existing generic, proxy, or process dataset(s) wouldn’t be representative enough, you should speak to your supplier about them providing:

a) data for you to create a full LCA (to use as a Private Resource)
b) a Private LCA (to use as Private Data), or
c) an EPD to be added to One Click LCA’s library

I hope these considerations can steer you in the right direction,
Graham

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