Ex Ante Life Cycle Assessment of High-TRL Non-Ferrous Metal Recycling: Waste-Specific Environmental Impacts

Variability in life cycle assessment (LCA) results for metal recycling technologies arises from multiple sources, including allocation methods, recycling route, regionality of impacts, and type of waste treated. Among these factors, waste composition is particularly critical, as it directly influences process performance by affecting auxiliary material consumption and emissions. This work investigates four waste categories: metals from incineration bottom ash (MBA), waste-printed circuit boards (WPCBs), industrial waste from gold refining (GRA), and spent automotive and industrial catalysts (SCs). The Climate Change (CC) for 1000 kg of waste was estimated at 3251 × 103 kg CO2eq for WPCBs, 3923 × 103 kg CO2eq for MBA, 1569 × 103 kg CO2eq for GRA, and 2101 × 103 kg CO2eq for SCs. A sensitivity analysis was performed to assess the influence of allocation methods on results for 1kg of recycled metal. The highest variability in CC across waste categories was observed for gold (up to 8477%) with the black-box economic allocation method, while different allocation methods reached 21,700% for WPCBs. These results highlight the strong influence of methodological choices and waste characteristics, emphasizing the need for transparent and consistent LCA reporting.