Quantifying the industry-wide symbiotic potential: LCA of construction and energy waste management in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The environmental potential of industrial symbiosis has been frequently quantified for material exchanges between a cluster of producers. However, looking at industrial symbiosis on an industrial scale makes it possible to better estimate the impact of future public policies and to guide their implementation in the right direction. This study aims to quantify the industry-wide symbiotic potential by using Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of waste management practices. We focus on the case study of the Czech Republic's management of coal combustion products (fly ash, slag, gypsum) and construction and demolition waste (concrete, bricks) with results interpreted as Environmental Footprint, a normalized and weighted indicator. The results suggest that for all studied materials, their use in product manufacturing should be prioritized as most environmentally beneficial strategy, followed by backfilling. When assessing the industry-wide symbiotic scenarios of waste management, we quantified the reduction of overall Environmental Footprint to 47 % for coal combustion products and to 80 % for construction and demolition waste compared to the current state. Finally, we present the calculated maximum transport distances over which it is still environmentally advantageous to transport these materials for substitution. These distances vary significantly depending on the method of material use. Overall, the results indicate that the greatest potential to reduce environmental impacts lies in pushing the limit of fly ash utilization for concrete production even further beyond the current state. The work concludes by highlighting the possibilities of not only using these results as baseline for creating waste management policies, but also as an information source in the efforts of industrial operators to reduce their environmental impacts.