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2007-Oct-1 - Studying for APSC Quiz tomorrow

214. F4 - [流星雨 #10] Precious Existence
Life Cycle Analysis
Useful for rooting out all possible environmental impacts of a product, from its raw material extraction to disposal or reuse. There are 3 general stages to any Life Cycle Analysis:
1. Definition of purpose (and by extension, scope) of study
This is useful because sometimes LCAs can develop into really humongous structures, especially a complex product (like a car, I don't know, sometimes some people define the purpose as 'to find all possible environmental impacts of a car' which would make it humongous by default). A purpose lets you know where to focus on the most, such as the extraction, or manufacturing, or usage, or disposal.

2. Inventory Analysis
This is where the real data collecting is. This is when you go and find out what happens in each stage of manufacturing that product you're studying, and take note of it, and draw lines and write things down that pertain to the life cycle of the product. Apparently quantitative data is better because might might help you determine which thing has more environmental impact (I dunno!)

3. Impact Assessment
Now you decide which places make the most negative environmental impact and figure out what you can do to reduce that.
There are a few substages to this:
a. Classification
Classify data in Stage 2 according to which ecosystem it is associated with
b. Characterization

common frameworks for comparing different data are established.

WTF does this mean?!!
c. Localization
Weighing impact based on the standards in the region and the assimilative capacity of the region. Which, as far as I can get out of it, means that if there's plenty of room for landfills, our product being disposed won't be that big of a deal, environmentally speaking, compared to... uh.... its traces of mercury inside or something. Or if nobody follows ISO9001 standards while manufacturing the product, and we don't follow the ISO9001 standards either, it won't be as big of a deal either. Which pretty much shoots the idea of Sustainable Design in its own foot.
d. Valuation
Weighing its impact based on socially perceived importance. As far as I can get out of this, it seems to be saying that if the public doesn't care about it, neither should us engineers. Which shoots the idea of Sustainable Design on its other foot.
Really, why does the Applied Science course have to set it in stone and procedurify it like that? It's like saying 'procedures of operating a computer - put hand on mouse; put hand on keyboard; put eyes on screen; sit down; push button', except it feels weirder.

OK, so Life Cycle Analysis is down. Afterwards it's Industrial Ecology. I wonder if we had to study anything else.

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