LCA Case Study of Ceramic Tableware: Ecodesign Aspects of Ceramics Production from Ancient Technology to Present Factory

Abstract

Ceramic tableware, as one of the products of daily use, can be produced in multiple ways. However, they all consume primary raw materials for manufacturing and energy for firing and generate emissions and waste. To assess how different types of production cause an environmental impact, five scenarios were compared using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In the first step, the energy and material flows from the following scenarios were analysed: factory (FAC), slip casting (PSC), pottery wheel (PW), high energy rate formation technique (HERF) and experimental reconstruction of the ancient technique (ANC). The results related to 1 kg of ceramics were interpreted using the perspective of ecodesign to discuss key parameters that affect environmental impacts. Considering the results in the Climate Change category, the FAC production of 1 kg of ceramics reached 3.64 kg CO2 eq. but the highest impact in this category was caused by low energy efficiency in the specific case of the PSC scenario (8.93 kg CO2 eq.). On the one hand, this paper contributes to the discussion of environmentally friendly tableware, but also serves as a case study that describes the implementation of ecodesign in the ceramic tableware industry as an important field of industrial production in the specific context of the Czech Republic, as a state, which has significant deposits of kaolin.