Application of life cycle assessment in the environmental study of sustainable ceramic bricks made with ‘alperujo’ (Olive pomace)

Abstract

Investigations on the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to the construction sector have shown that the environmental impact of construction products can be significantly reduced. To achieve this, the use of best available techniques and eco‐innovation in production plants must be promoted. In this way, the use of finite natural resources can be replaced by waste generated in other production processes, preferably available locally, stimulating the creation of more sustainable products. Conducting a comparative LCA study between the traditional ceramic brick manufacturing process and the ceramic brick manufacturing process incorporating ‘alperujo’ (waste generated in the virgin oil extraction process), is an inevitable step to achieve the integration of circularity and eco‐innovation in the production system of traditional ceramic materials, through the CML(Centrum voor Milieukunde Leiden) and IPCC(The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) methodology. The obtained results suggest that the environmental benefits in this practice are very limited, even taking into account the contribution of different amounts of this waste to the production of bricks.