A methodology is proposed for taking recycling, an essential activity of the developed economies, into account within LCA tools. The reasoning for choosing the methodology is exposed step by step. The final proposal is centered on the multiple-recycling model, which best describes the practical way that materials are actually recycled in the economy.
From a practical standpoint, the results obtained are attributed to steel on the basis of a specific value (e.g. t of CO2 per t of steel), which amounts to averaging the impact over the various steps of the recycling process on a weighted average basis, depending on the amount of material recycled at each step.