• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.52-60
• /
• 2018

In the construction industry, attempts to evaluate the environmental impact of products through life cycle assessment (LCA) approach has been on the rise. However, the domestic construction industry needs to make rapid decisions due to limited budget and schedule, so it is difficult to carry out a review of the environmental load on all resources. The decision-making process requires information on the major influence factors that should be focused on to reduce environmental load. And this information should be quantified so that it can be linked to environmental impact assessment. In this study, the LCA results of road construction cases were analyzed to provide such information. As a result, diesel, ready-mixed concrete, urethane-based paint, aggregate, and asphalt concrete were found to be the main factors that generated 93.17% of the environmental load in the earthwork type of road project. The total environmental cost caused by these affecting factors when constructing 1 km of earthwork type of road project is 242 million won. The analysis also shows that a 10% reduction in the amount of ready-mixed and asphalt concretes can reduce carbon emissions by 5.02% and 2.28% while reducing environmental costs by 11 million won per kilometer. In order to reduce carbon emissions of the earthwork type of road project, it is necessary to actively develop and introduce new methods and eco-friendly materials to reduce the overall use of ready-mixed concrete and asphalt concrete.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.178-185
• /
• 2014

This study investigates the characteristics of environmental impact from the construction phase of a high-speed railway through a Life Cycle Assessment method based on the materials used and the energy consumption of the equipment used according to the design statement. The results reveal that the contributions to environmental impact in the construction sector of a high-speed railway were 89% for civil engineering, 7% for the track system, 2% for stations and 2% for the energy and telecommunication system. In particular, the highest contribution to the impact in the civil engineering category were 54% for Global Warming, 25% for Abiotic Resource Depletion and 8% for Photochemical Oxidant Creation. The main influence factors were the use of remicon and cement. In future, the application of Life Cycle Assessment for the construction sector of railway construction will introduce efficient reduction methods according to the quantitative calculation of environmental impact.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.115-123
• /
• 2005

In this study, life cycle assessment(LCA) technique was employed to evaluate the environmental impact of material recycling of polyethylene terephthalate(PET) bottle. Life cycle inventory was established based on the data collected from recycling companies in Korea. Simapro 5.0 LCA software and Eco-indicator 95 index were used for the analysis. The biggest impact by the material recycling of PET bottle on the environmental category was the global warming. It is because melting and production of the recycled PET product consume a significant amount of electricity and energy. In the environmental pollution discharge, $CO_2$ emission was the highest, followed by NOx. This is probably due to the use of diesel and gasoline in the consumption of electricity and transportation. All the environmental impact showed (-) value except the ozone layer depletion, which means that the material recycling of PET bottle is environmentally fair. The use of recycled PET product greatly reduced the environmental impact.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.138-148
• /
• 2003

In the study, current status of waste plastic recycling was investigated. Some factors to obstruct recycling of waste plastic was analyzed. These factors include the difficulty of obtaining location and man power, unclear marking of recyclable plastic and inefficient rate in producer and consumer deposit system. Life cycle assessment(LCA) study was performed to investigate the environmental impact of waste plastic(PET) recycling. When the recycled raw plastic material is used together with the virgin raw plastic material, all the environmental impact showed (-) value except ozone depletion impact category. The environmental avoided impact was the greatest in the global warming impact category. For active promotion of recycling activity, source separation system of waste plastic should be established first of all. Also, marking system of the recycling waste plastic should be made more clear so that consumers can understand it easily. Other strategies include the determination of decent rate for producer and consumer deposit system, establishment of infrastructure and information system for waste plastic recycling and citizen's cooperation through intensive public education.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.721-732
• /
• 2018

Latent class analysis (LCA) is an important tool to explore unseen latent groups in multivariate categorical data. In practice, it is important to select a suitable set of variables because the inclusion of too many variables in the model makes the model complicated and reduces the accuracy of the parameter estimates. Dean and Raftery (Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 62, 11-35, 2010) proposed a headlong search algorithm based on Bayesian information criteria values to choose meaningful variables for LCA. In this paper, we propose a new variable selection procedure for LCA by utilizing posterior probabilities obtained from each fitted model. We propose a new statistic to measure the adequacy of LCA and develop a variable selection procedure. The effectiveness of the proposed method is also presented through some numerical studies.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.237-241
• /
• 2010

Many policies have been implemented to mitigate the greenhouse gases in atmosphere overall of sectors. With considering the distinct characteristics of the food security, agricultural sector is no exception to this situation. To this regard, total amount of carbon which is emitted through all of the agricultural production process is calculated, and being based on this result, the demand for the introduction of agricultural production system with low carbon has been rising. Case studies on the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) technique to agricultural sector are found in many countries. For example, life cycle inventory (LCI) data bases of crop, farm infrastructure, fertilizer, farm machinery, and etc., have been constructed and provided by Ecoinvent (Swiss centre for life cycle inventories) of Swiss. In Japan, Top-down typed LCA methodology for agriculture is developed based on the inter-industry analysis, and is evaluated according to the productive method of crop. On the other hand, environmental impact assessment of agricultural system using LCA in Korea is just in the beginning stages. So it is required to assess environmental impact on agricultural fertilizer and pesticide, and to develop their flow modeling, and methodology of LCA of agricultural sector. Environmental impact assessment on agricultural materials, machinery, and infrastructure will also be carried out.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.8 no.6
• /
• pp.150-158
• /
• 2007

As the amount of $CO_2$ emission in Korea is ranked 9th and the increasing rate of $CO_2$ emissions highest in the world, it is strongly necessary to devise methods to decrease the amount of $CO_2$ in each industry as the basis of establishing environmentally sustainable production system. This paper aims to identify the characteristics of $CO_2$ emissions from construction wastes throughout the simplified LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and suggest the strategic guideline for the construction waste management plan to decrease $CO_2$. As a result of LCA on the case of a high-rise residential building project, total sum of $CO_2$ emission generated from construction wastes appeared as 6,818,123kg-$CO_2$ and $CO_2$ emission per unit floor area as 21.01kg-$CO_2/{\beta}{\ge}$. The principal waste materials generating more than 95% of $CO_2$ are materials such as reinforcing bar, temporary materials, cement, ready-mixed-concrete, concrete products, and tile, which have relatively high unit emission rate of $CO_2$ in the process of production. Besides, more than 92% of $CO_2$ was generated from the activities such as structure work, plaster work, temporary work, and tile and stone work, which are generally executed in the early phase of the whole construction period. Reflecting these results, the guideline for the construction waste management plan was recommended. If the waste management plan is established considering the guideline suggested, there would be high potential to decrease the amount of $CO_2$ generated from construction wastes.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.87-100
• /
• 2003

The aim of study was to suggest a methodology for applying cleaner production technology in dyeing & finishing process of textile materials. To accomplish cleaner production, we performed consulting activity in dyeing factory, which composed of following different procedures. First, we organized consulting team with specialists for dyeing, energy and chemicals, and visited dyeing companies for the purpose of doing basic investigation such as analysis of process, chemicals & effluents, condition of equipment and process flow of products. Environmental aspect of raw materials (dyestuff, chemicals) was assessed by TOC, COD, BOD, and effluent of that was assessed by TOC, COD, BOD, TDS and pH. Second, We find out the problems in dyeing&finishing process from the view point of dyeing process, energy, raw materials and process management by utilizing MB (material balance), LCA(Life Cycle Assessment), EB(Energy Balance). Third, we generated the solutions to achieve optimal process condition by brain storming method, and then implemented the solutions to each process. Finally, we determined their effectiveness after considering the results of repeating trials for the solutions. Cleaner production could be achieved by keeping optimal process conditions, equipment modification, improved production management, and on-site reuse or recycling.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.132-140
• /
• 2012

Along with the increasing interest in environmental problems such as global warming, the South Korean government has established policies and regulations to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases, targeting a 30% reduction of $CO_2$ compared to business-as-usual levels by 2020. Thus, there have been many studies in construction field to control and reduce the amount of $CO_2$ emitted from buildings. $CO_2$ emission from the building construction could be obtained by using the life cycle assessment(LCA) methodology. In LCA, it is essential to have life cycle inventory(LCI) data of construction materials consisting of $CO_2$ emission data that have been defined and examined in a detailed way in order to obtain more accurate and detailed $CO_2$ emission of buildings. To date, however, the LCI data have been acquired only for the representative materials. Accordingly this study aimed to propose detailed $CO_2$ emission data for steel rebar and H-beam, which are the essential structural steel materials, by strength and type. To accomplish the objective, this study used Input-Output LCA methodology which is based on the Input-Output table. It is believed that the $CO_2$ emission data of steel materials acquired from this study would allow a more accurate assessment of $CO_2$ emission for diverse structural design alternatives.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.15-19
• /
• 2012

Wood wastes could be renewable resources by recycling as particleboard manufacturing or energy production. Particle board is the most common item of wood waste recycling and energy production from wood wastes has highlighted for energy recovery to reduce greenhouse gas generation in recent years. The aim of this study was to evaluate the environmental benefits of the processes for particle board manufacturing and energy production. The functional unit was one ton of wood wastes and the environmental impact was analyzed by life cycle assessment methodology. The result was that 112kg of carbon dioxide equivalent was produced from particle board manufacturing process and 382kg of carbon dioxide equivalent was produced from combined heat and power generation process. The concept of temporary biomass carbon storage was to applied to this study.