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Title Quantifying the industry-wide symbiotic potential: LCA of construction and energy waste management in the Czech Republic
ID_Doc 24559
Authors Paulu, A; Vitvarová, M; Kocí, V
Title Quantifying the industry-wide symbiotic potential: LCA of construction and energy waste management in the Czech Republic
Year 2022
Published
DOI 10.1016/j.spc.2022.08.033
Abstract The environmental potential of industrial symbiosis has been frequently quantified for material exchanges be-tween a cluster of producers. However, looking at industrial symbiosis on an industrial scale makes it possible to better estimate the impact of future public policies and to guide their implementation in the right direction. This study aims to quantify the industry-wide symbiotic potential by using Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of waste management practices. We focus on the case study of the Czech Republic's management of coal combustion products (fly ash, slag, gypsum) and construction and demolition waste (concrete, bricks) with results interpreted as Environmental Footprint, a normalized and weighted indica-tor. The results suggest that for all studied materials, their use in product manufacturing should be prioritized as most environmentally beneficial strategy, followed by backfilling. When assessing the industry-wide symbiotic scenarios of waste management, we quantified the reduction of overall Environmental Footprint to 47 % for coal combustion products and to 80 % for construction and demolition waste compared to the current state. Finally, we present the calculated maximum transport distances over which it is still environmentally advanta-geous to transport these materials for substitution. These distances vary significantly depending on the method of material use. Overall, the results indicate that the greatest potential to reduce environmental impacts lies in pushing the limit of fly ash utilization for concrete production even further beyond the current state. The work concludes by highlighting the possibilities of not only using these results as baseline for creating waste manage-ment policies, but also as an information source in the efforts of industrial operators to reduce their environmen-tal impacts. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Author Keywords LCA; Industrial symbiosis; Circular economy; Energy; Construction; Waste management
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED); Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
EID WOS:000863272800005
WoS Category Green & Sustainable Science & Technology; Environmental Studies
Research Area Science & Technology - Other Topics; Environmental Sciences & Ecology
PDF https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.08.033
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