In cooperation with the Danish Topic Centre on Resource and Waste Management, IPU has conducted a comprehensive review of LCA studies of seven material categories of key significance to the recycling sector. The study was commissioned by the UK Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), and launched at a reception for politicians and stakeholders in the British Parliament in May 2006.

WRAP was established in 2001 in response to the UK Government's Waste Strategy 2000 to promote sustainable waste management.

From the foreword to the Executive Summary:

"This study is the largest and most comprehensive international review of LCA work on key materials that are often collected for recycling – paper/cardboard, plastics, aluminium, steel, glass, wood and aggregates. Of several hundred studies that were screened, 55 ‘state-of-the-art’ LCAs were selected for detailed review, comprising over 200 different scenarios, each one an LCA in its own right."

..... 

 
"By conducting a large scale international review, and using rigorous criteria to ‘sift out’ those studies with less robust methodology and assumptions, the result is a far more objective review of the environmental impacts of different waste management systems for those key materials than any one individual study can deliver."

Ray Georgeson MBE
Director of Policy and Evaluation
WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme)
May 2006

 

An executive summary and the full report can be downloaded from WRAP's web site.

For more information contact: Niki Bey