Hello
Is it possible to determine the percentage pre and post consumer recycled content in an EcoInvent steel datapoint (unalloyed, converter)? I can see the secondary material content (Use of secondary materials: 0.23 kg / kg) but is it possible via the datacards to get any more granular information?
Thanks
Sam
Hi Sam,
Great question!
The short answer is unfortunately not.
The slightly longer answer is that secondary material content doesn’t specifically equal recycled content, whether it be pre- or post-consumer. You may have noticed that some other datasets have greater than 1 kg / kg for Use of secondary materials. This may be due to the use of small amounts of secondary materials in the production, as ancillaries or packaging, for example.
So while use of secondary materials may not be exactly equal to recycled content, it is assumed to be close and the best data we have available from ecoinvent.
Apologies that I couldn’t shed more light on the pre-/post-consumer percentage, however, I hope my response is useful.
Kind regards,
Graham