LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS

LCA of wooden pallet

Wooden packagaing materials such as crates and pallets are increasingly used with the rise
in global trade. Pallets are flat transport structures used in the tranport packaging by almost
all industries, including the shipping and transportation of groceries, beverages, drums,
chemicals, etc. In the shipping industry, good and containers are strapped onto pallets and
transported in bulk units to move goods around easily in bulk units. Wooden pallets are
generally manufactured from hardwood and softwood sawn lumber material. Pallets at the
end of their life are typically dismantled and recycled or made into other items. Table shown
below is a general life cycle assessment of a wooden pallet.

Energy to extract and

transport

Embodied Energy

Dust, machine
emission

Atmospheric emission

Energy Fuel
Atmospheric emission
consumption
Energy to
dismantle

Dust emission , noise

Life cycle assessment of wooden pallet on site.

Sourcing of suitable wooden pallets

Dust emission ,
noise

Noise, Energy

Sander wooden pallets

Dismantle of wooden pallets

Finishing of wooden pallets

Energy

Transportation to site

Ready made wooden pallet benches

installed in the garden

We recycled wooden pallets from different factories. Before we dismantle the pallet, we
sand the recycled pallet using sander machine to make it looks clean and new. After that,
we dismantled the smaller components of the pallets to make the pallets into our desired
sizes for the benches. We applied a layer of chalet shellac onto the wooden pallets as
finishing before we transport them to the site for installation.

Source : http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/08-02-06-1.php

From the table above shown that, the final industrial waste of a wooden pallet is much
lesser than plastic pallet and the raw material consumption of wooden pallet is also less
than the raw material consumption of plastic pallet. Besides that, the most obvious
advantage of wooden pallet is that pallets are a renewable fuel, which is considered to be
co2 neutral and thus not provide any net contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Due to this, we decided to use the wooden pallet instead of plastic pallet to make the
benches of the garden despite the wooden pallet is not resistance to water during rainy
season. Therefore, we applied wood finishes which is shellac to give a layer of protection to
the benches made with wooden pallets. Other than that, another reason for the decision is
that wood is more durable than plastic in terms of weight.
LCA of bamboo
Bamboo, like true wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-to-weight ratio
useful for structures. In its natural form, bamboo as a construction material is traditionally
associated with the cultures of South Asia, East Asia and the South Pacific, to some extent in
Central and South America, and by extension in the aesthetic of Tiki culture. In China and
India, bamboo was used to hold up simple suspension bridges, either by making cables of
split bamboo or twisting whole culms of sufficiently pliable bamboo together. Bamboo is
often used in the construction industry because of its good engineering properties and it is a
feasible substitute for other materials for housing and construction sector. Besides, bamboo has
high tensile strength, it can be easily worked upon by simple tools .It can also resist forces
created by high velocity wind and earthquake. Not only that, bamboos are eco friendly, energy
efficient and cost effective. The cutting of bamboo also does not give big impact to the
environment as bamboo is a fast growing species. Table shown below is a life cycle
assessment of bamboo on site.

Life cycle

assessment of bamboo on site.

Sourcing of suitable bamboo

Dust emission,
Noise

Cutting of bamboo

Energy

Transportation of bamboo

Finishing of bamboo

Bamboos used as structure for

canopy on site

We find suitable bamboos for our canopy structure. We cut it into according to our desired
sizes and cut holes at both ends of the bamboos for connection purposes. After we have
installed the bamboos firmly, we applied a layer of shellac on the bamboos as a protection.

Source : http://design490.org/bamboo-the-new-building-material/

From the comparison table shown above, overall bamboo has better properties when
compared to wood which is a quite similar material. Thus, we decided to choose bamboo as
the whole structure of the canopy of our garden. First of all, bamboo is 100% recyclable
material which can bring out the message of sustainability. On top of that, as the structure
of a canopy we need strong materials that is safe to use therefore the use of bamboo is
suitable as it is resistant to termites and it can withstand strong wind.