Product Category Rules (PCR) - PCR Library

5
Range of assessment
5-1 Calculation unit Sales unit.
“downgrade recycling”.
(19) Closed recycling (refer to “EcoLeaf Method of Calculating Product
Environmental Load during Recycling/Reuse”; Japan Environmental
Management Association for Industry: 2004)
- Reuse of waste products as recycled materials for products of the same type
as the original ones.
(20) Material recycling [Mechanical recycling] (refer to JIS Z 0112: 2008)
- Recycling of waste as materials or raw materials. It is also called “resource
recycling” or simply “recycling”.
- More specifically, used products, waste from production process, and the like
are collected, processed into forms suitable for recycling, and reused as
materials or raw materials for new products. (Processing associated with
chemical change is not performed. Waste is pulverized into flakes or pellets,
and recycled as raw materials. Recycling methods requiring a high cleaning
level and solid polycondensation process are also included.)
(21) Chemical recycling [Feedstock recycling] (refer to JIS Z 0112: 2008)
- A technique of recycling used resources after changing their composition
through chemical reaction.
- It usually refers to recycling of waste plastics with oil production, gasification
and coke-oven chemical raw material method. (In the case of recycling of
used PET bottles, they are chemically decomposed into the substances that
serve as the raw materials of PET resin, and they are reused to produce PET
resin again.)
(22) Thermal recycling
- A process in which waste plastics are burned, and the thermal energy
released is utilized to supply heat or electricity usually in the form of hot water,
steam and electric power. It is also called “energy recovery”.
5-2 Life cycle stages The life cycle stages (see page15 supplementary remark for better
understanding) :
- In the case of intermediate goods (B-to-B products), (1) the raw material
acquisition stage and (5) the disposal and recycling stage shall be covered.
However, (1) the raw material acquisition stage shall be divided into three
stages:
“(1-(1)) Container/packaging raw material acquisition stage”
“(1-(2)) Container/packaging production stage”
“(1-(3)) Container/packaging transport stage”
- When this PCR is used for “final consumer goods” supplied to consumers,
five life cycle stages shall be covered. The three stages mentioned above
shall correspond to the following stages, respectively.
“(1-(1)) Container/packaging raw material acquisition stage” => “(1) Raw
material acquisition stage”
“(1-(2)) Container/packaging production stage” => “(2) Production stage”
“(1-(3)) Container/packaging transport stage” => “(3) Distribution stage”
Basically, this PCR is developed for intermediate plastic containers and
packaging, the classification of the life cycle stages is unique.
6 General requirements applied to all stages
6-1 Life cycle flow chart - Life cycle flow chart is provided in Annex A (normative). The charts of
containers/packaging for business use and consumer use are provided in
“Annex A.1” and “Annex A.2”, respectively. These charts are conceptual charts
intended to make it easy to identify the “processes covered by each life cycle
stage”.
- When calculating GHG emissions, a detailed life cycle flow chart for each type
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