Life Cycle Impact Assessment for Sustainable Marble Mining

Türkiye possesses significant marble reserves, making marble mining a crucial industry with notable environmental effects due to high energy and fuel consumption. This study assesses the environmental impacts of marble production through a life cycle assessment (LCA) focused on a quarry in Burdur and a cutting plant in Denizli, Türkiye. The analysis covers quarry operations, on-site transport, transportation to the plant, and final processing. Following the cradle-to-gate approach, it includes A1 (raw material sourcing), A2 (transportation), and A3 (production) stages as specified in EN 15804. The LCA was performed using GaBi Education 8.0 software, applying the ReCiPe 2016 v1.1 impact assessment method. Besides evaluating the current system, three scenarios were devised to lessen environmental impacts: solar energy (Scenario A), biodiesel (Scenario B), and a combination of solar and biodiesel (Scenario C). These were compared to the baseline system. The findings reveal that the current system’s climate change impact is 43.97 kg CO 2 -eq, while Scenario C’s impact drops to 32.72 kg CO 2 -eq, a reduction of about 25.6%. Scenario C achieved the greatest reduction in climate impact, with electricity and diesel consumption, water, and chemicals used in processing being the main contributors to environmental impacts.