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Incorporating exposure science into life-cycle assessment
Citation:
Bare, J. AND D. Vallero. Incorporating exposure science into life-cycle assessment. AccessScience. McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, NY, , online, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory’s (NERL’s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD’s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA’s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is used to estimate the potential for environmental damage that may be caused by a product or process, ideally before the product or process begins. LCA includes all of the steps from extracting natural resources through manufacturing through product use, disposal, and recycling. LCA is increasingly used in environmental and sustainability decision making. In the past, some LCAs have employed human and ecological toxicity as a surrogate for risk; however, risk is a function of both toxicity and exposure to the toxic agent. For more complete assessments, LCAs estimate the potential for environmental damage by incorporating environmental fate, transport, and an agent's potential contact with humans and other species with toxicity. LCA calculations of human toxicity and ecotoxicity can be significant, especially considering all of the substances and exposure pathways which can be involved at each time and place where the toxin is released.
