DANTES

Environmental costs and environmental impacts in a chemical industry eLCC and LCA on two colorants

Stefan Bengtsson & Li Sjöborg Product Stewardship & Sustainability Akzo Nobel Surface Chemistry April 2004

Preface
This report is the result of our master thesis work at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. The project was performed at Akzo Nobel Surface Chemistry Sweden and at the department of Environmental System Analysis (ESA) at Chalmers. Sver ker Molander at ESA and Karin Sanne at Akzo Nobel have been the supervisors for this thesis work and we’d like to thank both of them for their support and their many good ideas. Additional thanks goes to the employees at Akzo Nobel Surface Chemistry Support Unit Sweden and to everyone we have been in contact with when collecting data to this thesis. Thank you! Göteborg, May 2004 Stefan Bengtsson Li Sjöborg

Summary
As the awareness of environmental problems increases so does the demands and guidelines from legislations and customers that deal with the environmental problems of the industries products and manufacturing processes. For a large international chemical company such as Akzo Nobel these increasing demands lead to costs for administrative work, taxes, testing, additional staff and investments. The aim of this study is to determine the properties of these “environmental costs” for the products of a chemical company. The study has focused on the production of two colorants. A surfactant (Berol 09), used in the older colorant formulation, contains nonyl phenol ethoxylate, a substance with potentially toxic properties. The newer colorant formulation contains another surfactant (Bermodol SPS 2532) that was developed as an environmentally favorable alternative to the other surfactant. Both surfactants are manufactured at the Akzo Nobel plant in Stenungsund, Sweden. This substitution is