Environmental and Uncertainty Assessment: Hazardous Industry Waste as Aggregate in Cement Production

Abstract

A life cycle assessment was carried out to estimate the environmental impact of industry waste as aggregate in cement production. To confirm and add credibility to the study, an uncertainty analysis was also carried out. Results showed the impact seen from climate change, human toxicity, marine eutrophication, marine ecotoxicity, and freshwater eutrophication categories had an important contribution to overall environmental impact, due to energy use and direct emissions from clinker and limestone production stages. The most significant substances contribute to the climate change is CO2 to air; for the human toxicity, it is Hg to air and Mn to water; for the marine eutrophication and marine ecotoxicity, it is nitrate and Ni to water, respectively; for the freshwater eutrophication, it is phosphorus to water. Increasing electricity recovery rate, optimizing the raw material consumption for clinker production are highly recommended to reduce the adverse impact on the environment, and therefore reduce the pressure on the environment from dramatically increased hazardous industry waste disposal.