A flexible method for including environmental toxicity in DFE and LCA

The proposed toxic equivalency potential for SETAC Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) relies on a data-intensive environmental fate and transport model, the fugacity model, and has rarely been applied. A case study of generic manufacturing processes showed that the toxic equivalency potential is applicable only for well-studied organic chemicals. This paper extends the applicability of toxic equivalency and introduces flexibility through allowing for other environmental pathway models. The evaluation utilizes a set of available information, including empirical data, environmental fate and transport models, and chemical similarity. A number of standard emissions streams from the electronics industry are compared and evaluated, using data from San Francisco Bay pollution studies, the CalTox model, and the EPA´s CFC phaseout program