Abstract
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an important tool for identifying potential environmental impacts assoc iated with the production of palm based plywood. This study is to make available the life cycle inventory fo r gateto-gate data so that the environmental impact posed by oil palm based plywood production can be assessed. Conducting an LCA on the palm based plywood that are derived from the wastes of the oil palm industry is a first step towards performing green environmental p roduct. Therefore.establishing baseline information for the complete environmental profile of the palm oil plywood is essential. Data from this study on the environmental impact for the production of palm ply wood would help to develop sustainable palm plywood product. The results will provide information to id entify ways and measures to reduce the environmental impacts. Most foreground data were collected direct ly from numbers oil palm plywood factories which represent 40% of the palm plywood industry in Peninsular Malaysia. Data gaps were filled by informatio n obtained through questionnaires which were developed specifically for data collection, literature, pub lic database or further calculated from obtained data. The outputs and inputs from production activities w ere quantified on the basis of functional unit of produ ction of 1 m 3 from different types of oil palm based plywood i.e., Moisture Resistant (MR), Weather Boiling Proo f (WBP) Grade 1 and Weather Boiling Proof (WBP) Grade 2. The life cycle impact assessment was carri ed out using SimaPro 7.1 software and the eco-indic ator 99 methodology. The weighting results of LCA for the production of 1 cubic meter of oil palm based plywoo d showed significant impact in descending order i.e., fossil fuel, respiratory inorganic and climate cha nge. The most significant process contributing to these envi ronmental impacts came from the production and usage of adhesives, transportation of oil palm trunks from p lantation to factory and generation and usage of el ectricity from the grid. The ways to mitigate the environment al impacts are by using substitutes for inorganic c hemical adhesives such as groundnut shell lignin adhesive, modified phenol formaldehyde adhesive and developing wood adhesive made from pyrolisis oil of oil palm b iomass, establishing a collecting centre for oil pa lm trunk transportation and efficient use of oil palm biomas s as an energy source. The study helped establishin g baseline information for the complete environmental profile of the palm oil industry from cradle to gr ave which starts at the oil palm germinated seeds to th e production of palm plywood.
Highlights
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a process tool to subsequently evaluates opportunities to effect evaluate the environmental impact associated with a environmental improvement
The ways to mitigate the environmental impacts are by using substitutes for inorganic chemical adhesives such as groundnut shell lignin adhesive, modified phenol formaldehyde adhesive and developing wood adhesive made from pyrolisis oil of oil palm biomass, establishing a collecting centre for oil palm trunk transportation and efficient use of oil palm biomass as an energy source
The characterization result for Moisture Resistant (MR) palm plywood indicates that the most significant life cycle is the production of urea formaldehyde, followed by lorry operation for transporting oil palm trunks from plantation to factory and generation of electricity from the grid
Summary
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a process tool to subsequently evaluates opportunities to effect evaluate the environmental impact associated with a environmental improvement. LCA has product, process or activity by identifying and become a holistic environmental management tool. As the world is demanding for economic growth which comes parallel with sustainability and quality of human life, LCA is a reliable and most advance tool in assessing the oil palm industry's environmental performance. LCA has been applied on the production of oil palm plywood, a downstream activity of the oil palm industry. The findings of these papers are very useful in improving the oil palm industry in Malaysia. Under specific controlled processing conditions to manufacture oil palm plywood, the total logs available can be converted into 4.5 million cubic meters of plywood. Realizing the potential of oil palm plywood and the importance of environmental performance, LCA has been carried out on the production of oil palm plywood
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