A comparison of molding technologies for plastic component production by an environmental perspective

For several decades now, plastic materials have been used more and more in many sectors both for supporting and for aesthetic elements. In particular, the automotive industry had the opportunity of exploiting their typical performances like their low weight, their ability of taking complex geometries, their flexibility, their aptitude of giving good quality surfaces, their low production cost. Such features helped it to answer to requirements, challenges and globalization of the market. Also the reduction of environmental impacts related to production, use and disposal of them was considered as an important goal during recent years. With the aim of investigating some alternatives for plastic component production, the paper shows the comparison between some different ways of molding them using the LCA methodology. Such approach is introductory to the evaluation of a specific component not having a complex geometry, but considered useful to catch the initial target of the comparison.