Application of life cycle assessment to improve the environmental performance of a ceramic tile packaging system

The overall goal of this study was to evaluate the environmental performance of the process currently used to package and palletize ceramic floor and wall tiles, and to propose and analyse improvements from an environmental point of view. After developing a life cycle inventory of the primary and tertiary packaging, the life cycle assessment was applied according to mandatory and optional elements of ISO 14042. The results are presented in three parts: the first quantifies the environmental behaviour of the current packaging system, the second examines strategies focused on minimizing the environmental burdens of such critical elements, and the third quantifies the environmental improvements, compared with the initial situation, that are obtained with the application of each improvement. The simultaneous incorporation of all the proposed improvements into the packaging system can reduce impact within the 18-45% range, depending on the impact method that is applied. Copyright (C) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.