Environmental Activities for the Classroom: Product Life-Cycle Analysis

Abstract

Dissecting a consumer product into all the various processes that contribute to its production and disposal can help us better understand how our consumer habits affect the environment. Consumption of products drives an array of extraction, manufacturing, processing, transportation and disposal operations. An analysis of these operations, called life-cycle or cradle-to-grave analysis, documents the inputs (water, energy, raw materials) and outputs (products and wastes), for these various steps.