Environmental Impacts for Recycled Aggregate Concrete by Adopting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

The awareness of sustainability has emerged over the last few decades and been applied to different fields, including construction sector. However, some barriers exist incontestably hinder the movement of it, such as manufacturing of virgin aggregate concrete (VAC). Trying to cut down the greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted from the conventional concrete, recent research presents the interests on the replacement of virgin aggregate (VA) with recycled aggregate (RA). The advantages of RA replacement are well recognized, whilst the prerequisites for its usage should be considered are that the technical adequacy and the environmental acceptability. Having successfully proved by previous scholars that recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) processes, the comparative strength to the conventional concrete, its environmental impacts throughout the lifespan are still uncertain. Therefore, this study aims to identify how RAC influence the environment through reviewing previous articles by using life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, including cement content, transport distance, mixture design, and parameters involving in LCA stages, and LCA software. These factors and parameters lead to the limitations of current LCA accordingly. Despite that, a general conclusion can be made that RAC is beneficial to the environment.