Life cycle assessment of paper production from treated wood

Abstract

The potential health and environmental impacts associated with the improper management of chemically treated wood waste demands the adoption of recycling, and disposal practices. Chemically treated wood waste has several physical and chemical properties which makes it usable for the manufacture of another product to multiple use, among which the production of paper and fuel. This paper presents the initial life cycle assessment (LCA) study on wood waste used for paper production. The study boundary is limited with raw materials (raw wood or waste wood) processing and paper production itself, thus corresponds to "gate-to-gate" life cycle with a special focus on life cycle inventory data on waste wood treatment via hydrolysis process. The results of the analysis demonstrate competitiveness of the waste wood use for paper production vs. raw wood in such environmental categories as human health and ecosystem quality.