B-02 Release of dangerous substances to soil and water during the use stage

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Aspect B-02 Release of dangerous substances to soil and water during the use stage
Description
 The release of dangerous substances to soil and water during the use stage concern the on-site water pollution induced by leaching (water contact with the built environment). These are expressed in mg of the released substance per m2 or kg of the exposed product, per time unit (e.g. year) and service life.

related study objective

 ☒ stand-alone LCA ☒ comparative assertion

related study phase

 ☒ ☒ ☐ ☐ ☐
goal and scope definition inventory analysis (LCI) impact assessment (LCIA) interpretation reporting

relevant for
new buildings existing buildings construction products screening LCA simplified LCA complete LCA
Provisions The release of dangerous substances to soil and water during use stage should be assessed in the context of a complete LCA, according to the European standards from CEN/TC 351.
Rules from:
 EN 15978:
7.4.4.2 Boundary of the installed products in use (Module B1)EN 15804:
7.4 Additional information on release of dangerous substances to indoor air, soil and water during the use stage
7.4.2 Soil and water

ILCD:
“Mandatory for both technical and non-technical target audience: ‘elementary flow categories’ by receiving/providing environmental compartment: ‘Emissions to water’.” “ISO 14044 names ‘emissions to air, water and soil’ as top-level classification, while recommending further differentiation as required for the given goal and scope of the LCA work.” ILCD Handbook: Framework and requirements for LCIA models and indicators: “This guidance document provides a framework and requirements for the models that are used to analyse the emissions into air, water and soil,…”
Guidance
 The boundary of Module B1 for buildings includes impacts such as release of substances from the façade, roof and other surfaces, which should be assessed according to the CEN/TC 351 standards.The release of dangerous substances should be provided for products exposed to soil and water after their installation in buildings during the use stage according to the horizontal standards issued from CEN TC 351, once these are available.The release of dangerous substances, expressed in mg/m2or kg per time unit and service life, should be assessed according to the CEN/TC 351 standards. The following draft documents are available: CEN/TC351/WG1/TS2 ‘Generic horizontal dynamic surface leaching test (DSLT) for determination of surface dependent release of substances from monolithic or plate-like or sheet-like building products’ and CEN/TC351/WG1/TS3 ‘Generic horizontal up-flow percolation test for determination of the release of substances from granular building products’ [CEN 2010b] (a third test method deals with the determination of the release of volatile organic compounds into indoor air by means of test chamber [CEN 2010c]). The robustness programme is in progress in 2012, and the validated standards should be available in 2013.A list of regulated dangerous substances possibly associated with building products under the Construction Product Directive (CPD) Regulation has been established at European level [EC 2011]. This list indicates which substances and parameters the evaluation should focus on . No aggregation is foreseen.For each pollutant, limit values are or can be defined at national level (at present only a few Member States have quantitative requirements on this issue, e.g. the Dutch ‘Soil Quality Decree’ [VROM 2007] and the German ‘Principles for assessing the effects of building products on soil and groundwater’ [DIBt 2009]). The results from these tests will be integrated into the CE marking scheme and make it possible to meet the RPC basic requirement No. 3 on hygiene, health and environment [EC 2005b]. They are complementary to the results obtained using the LCA methodology.Further work is necessary in order to establish scientific and pragmatic links between data obtained by an LCA approach (CEN/TC 350 work) and by using leaching tests (CEN/TC 351 work). Some proposals are available, as for example in [Lupsea 2012].For comparative assertions, simulation data are comparable if based on the same scenarios and hypothesis. All the parameters and hypotheses should be mentioned and explained together with the results in order to improve comparability.

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