I am creating an EPD where all my raw materials datapoints are (unfortunately) generic data. Still, in the results it is shown some values in “Secondary material”.
Shouldn’t it be zero if in fact my product contains no recycled material? And if it should be zero, would it be possible to make the software so that it wouldn’t take the secondary material from generic data to the results?
What about for example packaging materials. If those are made for example from recycled plastic, should I take those account when calculating secondary material use? I think I shouldn’t…?
Good question! Generally speaking, yes, but not always. Use of secondary material doesn’t necessarily equal recycled content, although it is a good indication of it. It’s possible that secondary material (scrap/waste), is used in the production of a material. However, that doesn’t mean that the final material has any, or an equivalent amount of, recycled content in it.
For example, “steel electric” has secondary material use of ~1.13kg/kg, but it’s not possible that it has 113% recycled content, i.e., greater than 100%. For some datapoints this occurs due to losses being accounted for.
Having said that, the use of secondary materials indicator is often the closest source of information we have to determine recycled content of a generic dataset. So, you can use this to help you evaluate if a dataset is the most representative choice for your LCA model.
And you are correct that packaging should not be included. Secondary material, inputs (%) as shown in the Environmental Data Summary table of EPD Hub EPDs is calculated based on the declared unit of the product only.
