Life Cycle Assessment of Waste Transportation Scenarios: A Case Study in Austrian Winter Sport Industry

End-of-life (EoL) waste management is considered one of the core elements in the transition to a circular economy (CE) as it increases resource efficiency and can contribute reducing harmful impacts on the environment. In general, EoL management includes the collection and transportation of post-consumer waste products, the separation of materials, recycling and reprocessing them to supply into production.
The winter sports industry has a similar structure and faces similar challenges with post-consumer good circularity as other industries in the European context. Recycling the rather complex hard goods with multiple polymer-based materials as one of the major contents of these products would be a key strategy to closing material loops.
The suitability concerning environmental performance of various end of life management techniques and processes needs to be evaluated by the use of sustainability assessment (SA) tools, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
In this work, scenarios under two different transportation modes for the collection of used winter sport equipment from the users are examined:(1) utilizing existing retailer logistics networks for take-backs, and (2) using municipal transportation routes to deliver waste to urban recycling centers. Realistic data from current practices and newly established collection routes are collected to reflect on the system functionality within current Austrian framework conditions.
Within the framework of these scenarios, a comparative LCA was performed focusing on five hard good categories (skis and bindings, helmets, boots, and poles) in an Austrian model region, particularly dedicated to winter sports sector. Data on distances, logistic networks, vehicle specification, and carried volumes have been integrated into the life cycle inventory (LCI) of these use cases. Using Environmental Footprint Life Cycle Impact Assessment (EF LCIA) methodology, the effect of various factors such as load capacity, vehicle return condition, collection frequencies and system management on ecological burdens were analyzed.