Application of Results of Ceramic Tiles Life Cycle Assessment due to Energy Savings and Environment Protection

The production of ceramic tiles has significant influence to environment due to consumption of energy sources, raw material, emission and waste that emerges throughout the production. The life cycle assessment method is used to show and test the possibility of decreasing the influence of contemporary manufacturing process of ceramic tiles to environment. The ceramic tiles are produced in monofiring production technology as a part of integrated management system using international accepted standards for quality ISO 9001 and for management environment ISO 14001. The influence of life cycle phases of ceramic tiles and total influence to environment is determined by usage of EKO indicator 99. We tested the possibility of using data obtained by evaluation to management decisions about the decreasing the influence of production process as a life cycle phase through the decreasing of energy consumption and natural resources. The consumption of energy sources as gas and electricity was reduced by using the projects for increasing the power efficiency. The savings in gas consumption are achieved by building in unit for supplying with waste warm from oven to atomizer and electronic equipment for atomizer automatic control. The procedures for decreasing the electricity consumption are also used.