Abstract
The future of the lead industry and of others facing similar challenges depends to a significant degree on their ability to develop and implement appropriate strategies and means to argue their environmental case and manage their environmental effects. These strategies and means need to be significantly more ‘holistic’ and integrated than previously. MIM Holdings, Ltd., an Australian-owned international company, and Britannia Refined Metals, Ltd., a United Kingdom-based metal-refining company in the MIM group, have sponsored an environmental assessment of their refined primary lead products. A major output from this research is an integrated series of environmental life-cycle assessment-based models with multiple foci, ranging from the whole ‘cradle-to-gate’ life-cycle to the individual process. From these models environmental inventories and potential environmental impacts may be calculated with relative ease. The technical, methodological and epistemological uncertainties inherent in such modelling necessitate that their potential influence be assessed and incorporated in any assertions that may be made. Graphs of selected inventories and potential impacts are presented and the interpretations are accompanied by such assessments. Finally, conclusions are drawn on the benefits and limitations of such modelling and assessment approaches, as well as on areas for further development.
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