Student activities - life cycle thinking
What is a life cycle?
Just as living things are born, get older, and die, products also have a life cycle. Each stage of a product's development affects our environment in different ways - from the way we use products to the quantities of products we buy, to what we do with a product when we are finished with it.
Life cycle flow chart
A product's life cycle is all the activities that go into making, transporting, using and disposing of that product.
Why are product life cycles important?
Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of the products you consume and use? Each day we use and consume hundreds of products: food, clothes, shoes, books, newspapers, paper, CD/DVD players, video games, mobile phones, and TVs. What are these products made of and where do their parts come from? What happens to them when we're finished with them?
By looking at a product's life cycle - from the extraction and processing of raw material, to manufacturing and distribution, to the products final use by consumers, recyclers and disposers – we can better understand the connection between Earth's resources, energy use, waste and wider challenges like climate change.
Thinking about a product's life cycle is a really useful way to help us decide which products have less impact on our environment. Understanding a products life cycle can also help us to reduce our ecological footprint.
Activities
- Where did it come from?
- How environmentally friendly is my lunch?
- Unwrapping a Big Mac
- Bottled water - is it the new eco-disaster?
- The secret life of an everyday product
- The WEEE Man
For more information, visit the Life cycle management website.
More activities
Check the student activities about Ecological Footprint, unpacking the Living Planet Report 2006 and water, energy and greenhouse gases.