bike_light_LCA_analysis model_no.2_apr._2013 1219557_szuchi_wang 1.3g PE
0.8g RUBBER
1.5g PE
1.5g STEEL 0.5g
2.5g PVC
1g PE
4.5g PE
0.2g STEEL
1.1g PE
0.1g silicone
Contents 1. Introduction 1-1. Aim 1-2. Product description 2. Identification of the Life Cycle 2-1. Components 2-2. Cambridge Eco Audit Analysis 2-3. SimaPRO 2-4. Software comparison 3. Human needs 3-1. Environmental and users’ behaviour change 3-2. Identification of existing problems 3-3. Suggestions and Critical analysis 4. Final product 4-1. Eco audit tool 4-2. Sketch References Appendix
1. Introduction 1-1. Aim In this essay, a bike light will be criticized and analyzed by Eco audit tool and Ecodesign web to figure general and critical issues out. The problems figured out from those stages will be the bases to lead recommendations and suggestions for improvement in the chosen product with Eco audit tool. 1-2. Product introduction • Background Bike light is one of the most frequent used tools in modern life. With the eco-awareness raising, people choose to live in less energy-consumption ways, so that bikes become the main transportation tools in lots of cities and bike lights are the essential equipment for safety. Commonly a bike light has a main body to project the light, a connector that can be adjust by users, and a holder to attach to the bike, but there are still lots of different types of designs on the market. For instance, a bike light that made by silicone to make the light more flexible and suitable for attaching to the bike, or bike lights that made into different shapes of stickers which can be stuck anywhere users want. • Description of chosen bike light The chosen bike light is a cheap China mass production item from Poundland, the main body (also the battery holder) are mainly made from PE with a PVC transparent red cover, an ABS silver reflecting chip made from plastic plating process, 2 steel screws to fix a PE clip and one screw to fix LEDs, beside these there are 3 small steel components to connect the batteries. The connector and the holder are also mainly made from PE with 2 steel screws and an rubber filler. The reason why I choose this bike light to analysis is that a bike light need to stand for the bad environment conditions and is the thing that easy to lose or get stolen, in this case, the bike light should be cheap to buy but has all the criteria to meet the needs of users, such as easy to take off and easy to adjust by one hand. So this one-pound light turns out to be the best match (reference photos.) As the consequence, I think the redesign process would focus on how to lower down the manufacture cost by reducing the number of components and manufacturing methods, or redesign the packing to reduce the space waste while transporting. 2. Identification of the Life Cycle 2-1. Components The chosen bike light is formed with 12 different components such as battery holder, clip and connector etc.
2-2. Cambridge Eco Audit Analysis According to the energy summary chart below, the energy consumption by material is 256 MJ (Mega Joules). The Manufacture is 9.62 MJ, Transport and Use show 1.56 MJ and 7.73 MJ. The noticeable parts are Disposal and EoL potential. The energy consumption of Disposal is 0.369 MJ and EoL potential is -26.8 MJ. As a result, the energy consumption per year is 138 MJ. The strongest part of the light is Disposal in its life cycle. Almost all the components can be recycled easily without taking too much energy, beside this the Transportation is also an important sector to mention, even though this item was transport from China to UK, it took little energy consumption because of the way it been packed. From the picture of the packaging, I can tell that this good can be put tightly to save much of the space while transporting, which is why the energy consumption of transport just takes 0.6% of all. This light has over 12 components, 6 materials, which make the material energy consumption part to be the weak point in its life cycle. More components mean more molds are used during manufacturing and more process to assemble them, these allow the energy consumption in Material part of the Eco Audit Report to rise. In addition, bike light is a cheap equipment that is averagely used for 2 years, if it is lost, got stolen or broke, users would just buy new ones without trying to repair it, leading the waste of energy.
2-3. SimaPRO The SimaPRO software provides different views of product from those of Eco Audit Analysis. The chart shows percentage of different life cycle parts in consumption of various sectors, fossil fuels, minerals, land use, acidification, ecotoxicity, ozone layer, radiation, climate change, resp. inorganics, Resp. organics and carcinogens. From these charts, I can have a rough clue of how much impact would happen to the environment on the item, transportation and landfill process. By using this software, designers can test their products and find out the part that can be improved, even though my chosen product is made by 90% recyclable materials, it still emit almost 8pt carcinogens when manufacturing it, and landfill emit some, too. Bike light is not a complicated product, and I set up the basic usage of it is 2 hours per day, 208 days per year, and the life cycle of this product is averagely 2 years, after I got the result and compare to the example coffee machine that we analysed in class, bike light has much lower impact to the environment. But the weak point is that the transportation on roads account for considerable percentage of every sector, I think the way to improve it is to design new packaging to squeeze more products in one unit or transport it by railways, to increase the efficiency of energy use.
By using the SimaPRO flow chart and “RADAR,� which we used in class, I can be more clear to find the design opportunities for redesigning this product into a more eco-friendly one. The left chart shows different environmental impact from the components, and base on this chart I drawn out the priority graph. This light has 12 components, I found out that some of them is not necessary and would be a waste of energy, so this would be my main focus when redesign. Beside this, material life extension also has high priority to design, as I researched, bike light has the average life expectancy around 2 years, but normally LED light bulbs have an average life expectancy of 50,000 hours, it has little chance to break or can be repair easily even though it is broken, the main reason for the short product life is been lost or stolen, the idea is that redesign the bike light to keep the owner pay more attention to it and have some emotional connection with it, so that the owner would willing to use it more carefully.
The chart below compares different indicators of all the components, the two most important sectors are PVC red light cover and LEDs because they have far more impact to the environment. The carcinogens account for over 90% in PVC red light cover part, PVC is one of the greatest sources of dioxins and other organochlorines. The incineration of a kilogram of PVC produces up to 50 micrograms of dioxin, enough to initiate cancer in 50,000 laboratory animals. One statement can be made with absolute certainty: PVC products will end up as waste. This is not only because of the nature of the products many PVC products are cheap, mass produced consumer goods that have a short life and cannot be repaired - but also because the many formulations and additives present in different PVC products make them impossible to recycle in the true sense of the world. In Germany, the Council of Experts for Environmental Issues issued a special report on waste management in 1990 concluding: 'Even assuming the possibility and technical implementation of pollution-free PVC incineration by means of end-of-pipe measures, it will remain necessary to remove the hydrochloric acid that is formed from the flue gas, to bind it as a salt and to store it, therefore the waste volume to be stored cannot be reduced by means of incineration.
Compare to PVC, I think it is better to change the light cover material into PP, PP is also a cheap plastic which is easier to recycle and has lower toxic contents, beside this, PP can also be made as transparent product but not as clear as PVC. LEDs have great environment impact in this product, too. The fossil fuels consumption takes big part in this sector, mainly used in usage life cycle. A newly released report from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and UK-based N14 Energy Limited compared the environmental impact of light-emitting diode (LED) light bulbs to compact fluorescent lamps. Choosing specific bulbs that best represent what is most typically and widely available for each of the three types of lights they studied, the team prepared for their analysis. They used a database to calculate the resources needed to produce the various components of the three light bulbs. The analysis revealed that both LEDs and CFLs are substantially more environmentally friendly than traditional incandescent, which consume far more electricity. For example, the specific incandescent light bulb the team studied consumes 60 watts of electricity, while the LED model they studied uses just 12.5 watts and the representative CFL only uses 15 watts to create the about same amount of light. In this case, I think LEDs is so far the best solution for a bike light, no need to change. But for the power source, battery is a kind of high environmental impact product, so for the redesign product it is a good design opportunity to have renewable power sources.
2-4. Software comparison After using both CES and SimaPRO to analysis the same product, there were some conclusions that I had. SimaPRO is a highly professional software which is more suitable for experts to have scientific research of their products, because most of the materials and processes are too complicate for normal users to understand. CES has less knowledge boundary and the user interface is easier to control, most of all, the outcomes are very clear and easy to understand, for users like students and people who are not material specialists, CES is the best LCA software to use. But there is a suggestion for both software, which is building a searching system of materials, then users can easily find the materials of components by typing the key words.
3. Human needs 3-1. Environmental and users’ behavior change People’s needs change from time to time by social issue, technology development and environment condition. From the population growth prediction made for 2050 (pictures below), the world's population has been extremely increased because of urbanization. Population shift is one of the main factors affecting urbanization. Less than 5 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities a century ago. In 2008, for the first time in humanity, that figure exceeded 50 per cent. By 2050, it will have reached 70 per cent, representing 6.4 billion people. Most of this growth will be taking place in developing regions. Between 2007 and 2025, the annual rate of change in the urban population in developing countries is expected to be 2.27 per cent, and 0.49 per cent in developed regions. China’s urban population is expected to double from about 40 per cent of its national population during 2006 to 2030 to more than 70 per cent by 2050. In developed countries the level of urbanization reached the 50 per cent mark more than half a century ago; developing countries will only reach this level in 2019. As the population growth, transportation become a big problem for citizens’ daily life, more and more people choose to combine bikes with public transportation to have better efficiency in cities, so the requirement of bicycle equipment has significant raised. People not only go after function but also famous brand and fashionable product, moreover, they start to aware the important of environmental protection and want to buy eco-friendly product. As the result, the redesign bike light should include those criteria.
With the development of technology, people already prepare their mind to adapt newest technology everyday, and also looking forward to improve their life with fordable new devices. Compare to the generation born before 1960, nowadays people can worry less about basic surviving needs such as food or water, instead, they can pay attention on self-
actualization needs and have chances to satisfy their emotional needs, which can be explained by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Therefore, with all these desire and requirement changes, there are design opportunities for the next stage Suggestions in this report. Not only the sustainable factors will be focused on, but the aesthetic factor also will be concerned to make better products.
3-2. Identification of existing problems • Material and components In the manufacture process of bike light, usually over 12 components with different materials are required. Therefore, if it is possible to reduce the numbers of components and materials, the energy consumption of material and manufacture will be decreased. • Emotional connection With the emotional connection of the product, people would cherish their product so that even it is a cheap product like bike light, they would pay more attention to the light and the product life expectancy would last longer. • Portable As I was doing my research, I found out lots of users complain about their bike lights are so easy to lost or get stolen, so if the device is very easy to be took off and carried around, the product life expectancy would also last longer. • Power source Even though the analysis in this report doesn’t include the battery, which has huge impact to the environment, so if the bike can by more eco-friendly by using renewable resources such as wind, solar power or powered by riding.
3-3. Suggestions and Critical analysis • Use PP to replace PVC light cover, because compare to PP, PVC content much more toxic in both manufacturing and disposal process. PP is more flexible and less likely to crack when being bumped, which is frequently happened when user riding a bike. But the weakness is that PP is not a clear plastic when being made into transparent product, it would lower the level of lighting. • Reduce the number of components, this bike light content more than 12 components and 6 materials, as I thought the bike holder and the main body can be made into one component with soft material like silicone, and put steel wire inside it as a adjuster, this way the bike light can have better water proof capability and need less mold in manufacture process. But this suggestions would lead to much higher cost while making it, and hard to recycle because it is hard to disassemble. • Use renewable power sources to replace batteries because batteries are too toxic to the environment, like use solar power store power during daylight and use it in the night, or get powered from riding. But if this bike light uses other power sources would also lead to higher cost during the manufacturing process or require users to have other equipment to generate electricity for the light.
4. Final product In this stage, the final chosen design will be described that figured out from suggestions. The one I choose from the previous stage is reducing the environmental impact of material sector to lead better solution. Cutting down the number of components and materials by using silicon rubber to make the whole body, which can replace 6 components of original bike light into only one in the redesign one. Moreover, a generally accepted conclusion is that methyl silicates and silicone polymers have no known negative environmental impact. The low molecular weight silicones are so volatile they undergo an oxidative degradation in the atmosphere, completely degrading into water, silicic acid, and carbon dioxide. The higher weight silicones will end up as sludge in waste water treatment plants, but will degrade when used as fertilizers to water, silicic acid, and carbon dioxide. 4-1. Eco audit tool The chart below compares the original bike light and the redesign one, according to the Eco audit tool it is possible to reduce the energy consumption in all the sectors by using silicone rubber for main body of bike light. More specifically, the energy consumption of Material bar shows biggest change, it has decreased from almost 260 MJ to less than 50 MJ. The bars of Manufacture and Transport also have decreased from 10.5 and 1.56 MJ to almost none although the Use and Disposal are nearly the same as before. As a result, the energy consumption per year has become 138 to 27.8 MJ.
4-2. Sketches This redesign bike light is made for easy carrying and flexible to fix on different places around bicycles. The whole body is made by silicone rubber, and can be used like a watch, by wrapping on seat tube and cross the tail through the hole on the other side, the bosses would get stuck and the light can fix on the bike, and users can take it off easily by squeezing the hole to release the bosses. The way to change the CR2032 battery is also simple, users can bend the light at the small crack to show up the battery chip and replace them with a new one.
References Greenpeace International 1992, PVC Toxic Waste in Disguise, http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/PVC-Disguise-Greenpeace1992.htm#8 On Gift-Giving, Technology, and “First World Problems”, 12 DEC 2012, http://hypnosaka.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/on-gift-giving-technology-and-first.html 反 PVC ⾏行動網, PVC 的危害－廢棄階段, 2012 http://www.taiwanwatch.org.tw/Anti_PVC/pvc-hazards-disposal.htm unicef, An Urban World, 2013 http://www.unicef.org/ eNotes, Acrylic Plastic, http://www.enotes.com/acrylic-plastic-reference/acrylic-plastic redOrbit, Researchers find that LED bulbs are healthier for the environment, SEP 2012, http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112688707/led-bulbs-environment-090612/ Joseph C. Salamone C R C Press LLC, Polymeric materials encyclopedia. 10. Q – S, 1996, http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/silicones-environmental-impact.html
Appendix 1: Eco Audit Report of original product Material: Recycled content* (%)
Component
Material
Transparent red
PVC (20% glass fiber, molding) PE-LD (molding and extrusion) PE-LD (molding and extrusion) PE-LD (molding and extrusion) PE-LD (molding and extrusion) PE-LD (molding and extrusion) Polyisoprene rubber (unreinforced) Stainless steel, martensitic, ASTM CA-6NM, cast
Reflecting chip Main body Clip Connector Holder Filler All Steels LED
Diodes and LEDs
Button
Silicone (VMQ, heat cured, low hardness)
Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%)
Part mas s (kg) 0.02 5 0.01 0.04 5 0.01 1 0.01 5 0.01 3 0.00 8 0.01 7 0.00 5 0.00 1
Total
Qty .
Total mass
CO2 footprint (kg)
1
0.025
0.066
0.5
2
0.02
0.069
0.6
3
0.14
0.47
3.7
4
0.044
0.15
1.2
5
0.075
0.26
2.1
6
0.078
0.27
2.1
7
0.056
0.3
2.4
8
0.14
0.58
4.6
9
0.045
10
82.1
10
0.01
0.089
0.7
55
0.62
13
100
%
Manufacture: Process
Amount processed
CO2 footprint (kg)
%
Transparent red
Polymer molding
0.025 kg
0.033
4.5
Reflecting chip
Polymer molding
0.02 kg
0.028
3.9
Main body
Polymer molding
0.14 kg
0.19
26.1
Clip
Polymer molding
0.044 kg
0.062
8.5
Connector
Polymer molding
0.075 kg
0.11
14.5
Holder
Polymer molding
0.078 kg
0.11
15.1
Filler
Polymer molding
0.056 kg
0.072
9.9
Casting
0.14 kg
0.12
16.0
Polymer molding
0.01 kg
0.012
1.6
0.73
100
Component
All Steels Button Total
Transport: Breakdown by transport stage Stage name Truck(Guangzhou-Shanghai) Freight Total
Total product mass = 0.62 kg Transport type
Distance (km)
CO2 footprint (kg)
%
14 tonne truck
1.5e+03
0.056
50.3
Sea freight
7.8e+03
0.055
49.7
9.3e+03
0.11
100
Breakdown by components Component mass (kg)
CO2 footprint (kg)
%
Transparent red
0.025
0.0044
4.0
Reflecting chip
0.02
0.0036
3.2
Component
Main body
0.14
0.024
21.6
Clip
0.044
0.0078
7.1
Connector
0.075
0.013
12.0
Holder
0.078
0.014
12.5
Filler
0.056
0.01
9.0
All Steels
0.14
0.024
21.8
LED
0.045
0.008
7.2
Button
0.01
0.0018
1.6
Total
0.62
0.11
100
Use: Static mode Energy input and output type Use location Power rating (W)
Electric to chemical (advanced battery) United Kingdom 1
Usage (hours per day)
2
Usage (days per year)
2.4e+02
Product life (years)
2
Disposal: End of life option
CO2 footprint (kg)
%
Transparent red
Landfill
0.00035
1.4
Reflecting chip
Recycle
0.00098
3.8
Main body
Recycle
0.0066
25.6
Clip
Recycle
0.0022
8.4
Connector
Recycle
0.0037
14.2
Holder
Recycle
0.0038
14.8
Filler
Landfill
0.00078
3.0
All Steels
Recycle
0.0067
25.8
LED
Landfill
0.00063
2.4
Button
Landfill
0.00014
0.5
0.026
100
Component
Total
EoL potential: End of life option
Component
CO2 footprint (kg)
%
Transparent red
Landfill
0
0.0
Reflecting chip
Recycle
-0.046
3.7
Main body
Recycle
-0.31
25.3
Clip
Recycle
-0.1
8.2
Connector
Recycle
-0.17
14.0
Holder
Recycle
-0.18
14.6
Filler
Landfill
0
0.0
All Steels
Recycle
-0.41
34.1
LED
Landfill
0
0.0
Button
Landfill
0
0.0
-1.2
100
Total
Appendix 2: Eco Audit Report of redesign product Material: Recycled content* (%)
Component
Material
Main Body
Silicone (VMQ, heat cured)
LEDs
Diodes and LEDs
Virgin (0%) Virgin (0%)
Part mas s (kg) 0.01 5 0.00 5
Total
Qty .
Total mass
Energy (MJ)
%
1
0.015
1.9
3.9
2
0.01
46
96.1
3
0.025
48
100
Manufacture: Component
Process
Amount processed
Main Body
Polymer molding
Energy (MJ)
%
0.22
100.0
0.22
100
0.015 kg
Total
Transport: Breakdown by transport stage Stage name Truck(Guangzhou-Shanghai) Freight
Total product mass = 0.62 kg Transport type
Distance (km)
Energy (MJ)
%
14 tonne truck
1.5e+03
0.032
50.3
Sea freight
7.8e+03
0.031
49.7
9.3e+03
0.063
100
Total
Breakdown by components Component
Component mass (kg)
Energy (MJ)
%
Main Body
0.015
0.038
60.0
LEDs
0.01
0.025
40.0
Total
0.025
0.063
100
Use: Static mode Energy input and output type
Electric to em radiation (LED)
Use location
United Kingdom
Power rating (W)
1
Usage (hours per day)
2
Usage (days per year)
2.1e+02
Product life (years)
2
Disposal: Component
End of life option
Energy (MJ)
%
Main Body
Landfill
0.003
60.0
LEDs
Landfill
0.002
40.0
0.005
100
%
Total
EoL potential: Component
End of life option
Energy (MJ)
Main Body
Landfill
0
LEDs
Landfill
0
Total
0
100