Life Cycle Activity Analysis Applied to the Portuguese Used Tire Market

A mathematical programming decision model - Life Cycle Activity Analysis (LCAA), integrating economics and environment in the optimization of the life cycle of products is presented. LCAA is based on the integration of “activity analysis” with the “life cycle assessment” framework. An illustrative application taken from the Portuguese used tire market is described. The model features two scenarios for tire end-of-life recovery technologies, where the environmental consequences of the prohibition of tire landfill are analyzed, namely in terms of energy use. Alternative end of life strategies such as tire remanufacture (retreading), recycling, heat generation in cement plants is considered in the model. The model shows that, provided the Portuguese constraints on the capacity of the alternative solutions, the prohibition of tire landfill result in a 5% decrease of energy consumption over the total tire life cycle.