The lifetime of a product is the period between the time of production and the time of initiating waste treatment of the product. This concept defines the temporal boundary during which a product remains in active use or storage before it enters the waste management system.
Understanding product lifetime is essential in Life Cycle Assessment because it determines the duration over which use-phase impacts are distributed and helps establish when end-of-life processes begin. The lifetime begins at the moment the product is manufactured and ends not when the product stops being used, but specifically when waste treatment activities commence.
It is important to distinguish between a product's functional lifetime (how long it performs its intended purpose), its actual service life (how long it is kept by users), and its lifetime as defined here. A product may cease to function or be discarded by its user, yet its lifetime in LCA terms only concludes when waste treatment processes are initiated. This could include activities such as collection for recycling, incineration, landfilling, or other treatment operations.
The concept differs from the marketing notion of product life cycle, which refers to stages of market introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. In LCA, the focus is strictly on the physical temporal span of the product's existence from production through to the initiation of its treatment as waste. This temporal boundary is crucial for accurately modelling the environmental impacts associated with infrastructure requirements, maintenance activities, and use-phase consumption patterns over the product's operational period.
For products with extended lifetimes, such as buildings or industrial equipment, the lifetime can span decades and significantly influence the overall environmental profile of the product system.
