Environmental impact assessment of European non-ferro mining industries through life-cycle assessment

Shahjadi Hisan Farjana, Nazmul Huda, M. A. Parvez Mahmud

Research output: Contribution to journalConference paperpeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
140 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

European mining industries are the vast industrial sector which contributes largely on their economy which constitutes of ferro and non-ferro metals and minerals industries. The non-ferro metals extraction and processing industries require focus of attention due to sustainability concerns as their manufacturing processes are highly energy intensive and impacts globally on environment. This paper analyses major environmental effects caused by European metal industries based on the life-cycle impact analysis technologies. This research work is the first work in considering the comparative environmental impact analysis of European non-ferro metal industries which will reveal their technological similarities and dissimilarities to assess their environmental loads. The life-cycle inventory datasets are collected from the EcoInvent database while the analysis is done using the CML baseline and ReCipe endpoint method using SimaPro software version 8.4. The CML and ReCipe method are chosen because they are specialized impact assessment methods for European continent. The impact categories outlined for discussion here are human health, global warming and ecotoxicity. The analysis results reveal that the gold industry is vulnerable for the environment due to waste emission and similar result retained by silver mines a little bit. But copper, lead, manganese and zinc mining processes and industries are environment friendly in terms of metal extraction technologies and waste emissions.
Original languageEnglish
Article number012019
Pages (from-to)1-7
Number of pages7
JournalIOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
Volume154
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 May 2018
Event2018 7th International Conference on Clean and Green Energy - Paris, France
Duration: 7 Feb 20189 Feb 2018
Conference number: 7th

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