Life Cycle Assesment (LCA) and Characterization of the production of
ceramic tiles in the county of Parelhas/RN.
Ceramic industry. Red ceramics. Environmental impacts. Life Cycle
Assesment.
The red ceramics industry has great economic importance in the
industrial sector in Rio Grande do Norte. The County of Parelhas/RN
stands out as the main state producer, which is inserted in the biggest
ceramic pole of the state, the Seridó. The Life Cycle Assesment (LCA)
covers the potential environmental aspects and impacts throughout the
life cycle of a product, considering the input and output flows of
materials and energy. Therefore, this study aims to characterize the
ceramics industry and perform a LCA of the production of ceramic tiles
in the county of Parelhas/RN. In the first stage of the research the
characterization of the local industry was carried out, through an
exploratory research with the study of multiple cases. The second stage
of the research had the ABNT ISO 14040:2014 and the ABNT ISO
14044:2014 standards, that manage the LCA, as normative reference.
The LCA was performed with a from cradle to factory gate approach,
contemplating the steps: extraction of raw materials, transportation of
raw material and production of ceramic tiles, comparing the
environmental performance of the production of two ceramics. The
characterization of industry indicates that the ceramics of the county
have an accentuated production of ceramic tiles and use inputs extracted
in the region of Seridó in the stages of productive process. The results of
the LCA indicate that the production of ceramic tiles has a potential
contribution to global warming process is the one that has the greatest
influence.