A comparative Life Cycle Assessment between recycled aggregate and natural aggregate

The construction industry consumes many natural resources and generates a large amount of waste in the environment, in all phases of the life cycle. For this reason, the use of recycled material is increasingly being encouraged, instead of original raw material for the production of new materials that contribute to closing the materials cycle. The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of obtaining natural aggregate and recycled aggregate, taking Spain as a case study. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and the IMPACT 2002+ method were used to calculate the environmental impacts. To carry out the inventory, primary information was obtained and subsequently complemented and compared with the Ecoinvent v2.2 database. The results of this study show that the obtaining of natural aggregate has environmental impacts on all the evaluated categories. Recycled aggregate from reinforced concrete has impacts on the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects category. However, it results in significant savings in the other categories. Recycling aggregate on the construction site resulted in higher savings in most categories than recycling aggregate at the plant.