Development of a semi-quantitative pre-LCA tool

This paper describes the development of a semi-quantitative pre-LCA (life-c ycle assessment) tool for assessing the environmental impacts of the produc tion of a printer. This tool provides a quick-and-easy means of assessing t he environmental impacts of a complex product, where a full LCA evaluation of the complex product would often require extensive calculations and the a nalysis is very time-consuming and places a heavy burden on the designer. T he tool allows a designer to easily compute a total environmental impact va lue for each of the various alternative designs. The pre-LCA tool computes an environmental impact value by considering factors such as airborne and w aterborne emissions, the recyclability potential, waste disposal, the globa l warming factor, the energy content of raw materials, the divertible plast ic waste potential, etc. The analytical hierarchy comparison method is used for the designers to indicate the relative importance of these factors wit h respect to their designs. Environmental values for the various factors ar e calculated from graphs that have been derived based on extensive intervie ws with engineers involved in the production process, as well as from liter ature research. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.