Evaluation of Traditional Container Glass Recycling Systems against Selected Environmental Impact Criteria Using the LCA Method

The research results presented in this article are an answer to the controversial theses questioning the validity of traditional recycling methods. The voices of scientific circles which have appeared recently indicate that irrational waste management and energy-intensive recycling of selected products bring more harm than benefits to the environment. This paper is devoted to the assessment of selected environmental effects of traditional recycling processes for container glass. The environmental impact of collection, segregation, transport and remelting of glass waste was analysed using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) method and available databases. The environmental impact of the processes described was assessed in terms of selected criteria: climate change, energy depletion, air emissions, toxicity and depletion of natural resources. Two methods were used for the calculations: the method of the Institute of Environmental Engineering of Leiden University–CML and the Ecological Scarcity Method (ESM). The calculations were carried out for an exemplary city located in eastern Poland. The study showed that, compared with purely natural glass production, the production of recyclates was more favourable in terms of all the above-mentioned factors. Additional calculations made it possible to estimate the waste transport distance, for which the environmental impact of transporting recyclate to the glassworks made the glass recycling process by re-melting less favourable than the production of packaging from natural resources.