An overall assessment of life cycle inventory quality - Application to theproduction of polyethylene bottles

A qualitative, quantitative, and overall quality assessment of life cycle i nventory is suggested. The method is composed of five indicators which are set up at three levels of the inventory quality: flows, processes, and the system. The method allows one to assess the reliability of the method gener ating inventory data (justness of data, completeness of data, representativ ity of processes, repeatability of system definition) and at the same time to quantify the uncertainty of the resulting data made under the data gener ation method. LCA practitioners can finally decide the overall inventory qu ality through the information for the acceptability of the inventory result comparing the objective of quality and the cost necessary to improve the q uality. The operation of the method was verified in the application to the production of polyethylene bottles. The proposed method was also found appl icable for the validation of data in the ISO's LCA data documentation forma t.