Environmental and economic life cycle assessment of polymers and polymer matrix composites: a review

The present work reviews studies on the use of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies for evaluating environmental and economic impacts of polymers and polymer composites. Current publications were reviewed and differences in methods and results discussed. It was concluded that literature results on LCA of polymers and polymer composites are generally consistent, showing that indicators, such as Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Total Energy Use (TEU) are generally lower than those of alternative materials. On the other hand, the economic literature is not so extensive and standard methods still need to be adopted, since different economic analysis methodologies were used in the studies reviewed.