Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is used to improve the environmentalperformance of products over their entire life, and LCA methods are in aconstant state of evolution. A quantitative model for product analysishas been developed at Carnegie Mellon. The model is based on economicinput-output life-cycle analysis (EIO-LCA), a tool that allows a user toquantify direct and indirect relationships among industry sectors andassociated environmental burdens during the manufacturing stage of aproduct. However, to study environmental effects over a product's entirelife, use and end-of-life impacts must also be quantified. This paperpresents a hybrid LCA approach to product environmental assessment inwhich both EIO-LCA and a conventional LCA approach are applied tocomparing the total environmental impacts of primary and rechargeablebatteries. We find that through the manufacturing stage, theenvironmental impact of primary batteries is greater than that ofstorage batteries. Resource use and associated impacts aftermanufacturing can be partially quantified at present
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