Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment

What is Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment?

Within Chemistry, which covers atoms, bonding, reactions, the periodic table, organic chemistry and the chemistry of everyday life, this topic explains Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment. Chemistry links what you can see in the lab to the particles and bonds behind it, so each topic here shows that link in a model.

Check that you can explain Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment helps you explain why substances behave as they do, from cleaning products and food to medicines.

Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment in detail

Recycling reuses materials, reducing waste, conserving raw materials and saving energy; recycling aluminium uses about 5% of the energy needed to extract it from ore. Glass, metals, paper and some plastics are commonly recycled.

A life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates the environmental impact of a product from raw material extraction through manufacture, use and disposal, considering energy, water, waste and emissions. LCAs allow fair comparison, such as paper versus plastic bags, though some values involve judgements, so results can be debated. They help companies and governments make sustainable choices.

How the interactive helps you understand Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment

Watch the cycle in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the cycle responds.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment.

Real-life uses and examples

• Explain Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment in an exam by linking the particles involved to what you observe.
• Use Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment to explain what happens in a lab experiment and why.
• Link Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment to everyday products such as cleaning agents, food and medicines.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Mixing up the names of substances or ions when you describe Recycling and Life Cycle Assessment.
• Describing what happens without explaining the particles or bonds involved.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.