Process metal input smaller than metal output

Question

Hi,

I think I must be missing something really important about the way Open LCA works. Please help!

I want to use process: 'aluminium product manufacturing, average metal working'. However I find that the total amount of Al input into this process, that is 'aluminium, production mix, at plant' is 0.227kg and the output of 'aluminium product manufacturing, average metal working' is 1kg. There is no other Al input into this process. It is not possible for 0.227kg of Al to be converted to 1kg.

I must be missing something very basic about the way that processes are used. Id really appreciate it if someone could explain why this is.

Kind regards,

Sally

Answer 1

I assume you are speaking of the Ecoinvent dataset? If yes: Manufacturing datasets usually do not include the required raw material. Thus, for modelling the life cycle of a product, you have to add the respective raw material dataset.

The material inputs in the manufacturing dataset you speak of represent the production waste