SUMMARY

With the increasing awareness of our daily impact on the world around us there has been a push to develop environmental strategies and new industries focused on sustainability and the recycling of post-consumer goods. Urban regions provide the perfect setting for such development. The concentration of post-consumer waste makes the mining of recyclable materials economical and the availability of labor needed to support the emerging sustainable industries sets the stage for social, economic and environmental benefits. There are several end-of-life (EOL) options for post-consumer products including primary material reclamation, secondary material reclamation, repurpose material reclamation, and waste disposal. Due to this variety there is no straight-forward answer to the question – Which EOL option is preferred? Thus, under the guidelines of Life Cycle Assessment - ISO14040, with the inclusion of social and economic indicators, the various EOL scenarios are compared in impact categories ranging from energy use to labor potential and economic viability. The results of this comparative analysis provide insight into the potential of a more sustainable urban environment. The case study used to explore this type of assessment is based on the current carpet industry, which contributes nearly 4.7 billion tons of post-consumer waste annually. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carpet occupies 1% by weight and 2% by volume of the national landfill space. Thus, a comparative EOL study is conducted to assess the social, economic and environmental effects of various EOL options for post-consumer carpet within the thirteen county urban region of Atlanta, Georgia.