Calculation method of stockpiling and use phase in road LCA: Case study of steel slag recycling

The environmental assessment of EAF-S recycling in road using LCA is investigated in this paper. Generally, in the LCA framework, the environmental assessment of recycling waste does not take into account the life cycle phases corresponding to stockpiling and use, as they are considered to have no impact, only waste processing is counted. We therefore propose to assess recycling of EAF-S in roads considering the phases of processing, stockpiling, transport and use in roads. The calculation of the use phase based on results from percolation test is compared to its calculation based on Ecoinvent data (total content and a transfer factor), in order to determine whether if the results are in the same range or not and propose recommendation for the use of Ecoinvent data in case of lack of data for waste materials. The impact indicators calculated are: energy, global warming potential, ecotoxic and toxic potentials using Ecorcem and OpenLCA softwares.