Beurteilung der Rezyklierbarkeit von Papieren auf ökologischer Basis, Masterplan für effizientes Downcycling von Papieren

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C94.0045

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Paper; Board; Downcycling; Ecoefficiency

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action E1 - Recyclage du papier

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

See abstract

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

CH, D, E, F, FIN, H, I, IRL, N, NL, P, PL, S, SI, UK

Abstract (Englisch)

This work deals with the environmental burden of the recycling process of paper and board products. Paper and board is produced and consumed in Switzerland as well as in many other countries in big quantities. Accordingly also a big amount of used paper arises. Point is whether recycling or burning used paper and producing virgin fiber paper is ecologically better. A method was developed to analyze this point for different cases. Prerequisite for this method is that a life cycle analysis is made for all cases, which should be considered. In the present work fiber flows and fiber products were considered for selected uses (functional units) of these products. A life cycle analysis was made by using the CML-Method. As inventory for this life cycle analysis principally data of the BUWAL report SRU No.250 were used. In order to compare the environmental burden with the use of the produced product, the ecoefficiency is defined as relation between the practical use and the environmental burden of the life cycle of the product. A masterplan was developed. This masterplan optimizes the ecoefficiency of a chained up system by adapting the fiber flows of the system. For the paper industry the production of pulp and paper and the fiber flows in between is the system. By regarding the different CML effect scores it was found that depletion of biotic resources and the ozone depletion of the paper industry have no effect on the environmental burden. The greenhouse effect and the abiotic depletion instead have the biggest effect. The ecoefficiency is also very much influenced by the choice of the foreseen application of the product. It is possible to define the size of fiber flows, which should go into the various processes, m order to maximize the ecoefficiency. By considering many uses (functional units) at the same time, bigger systems, such as whole countries can be evaluated. It was shown that in order to simplify the system it is useful to aggregate different similar uses to groups. The developed method can be applied by using different LCA-Method. The calculated results can differ due to different importance levels given to the environmental effects in the LCA-Methods. It was shown that by using the CML-Method the major environmental effects for the paper industry are the enhanced greenhouse effect and the depletion of abiotic resources. This procedure is described in the Dissertation ETH Nr. 12341.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C94.0045