Life-Cycle Assessment methodology: a tool for the evaluation of environmental and toxicological impacts of ammunitions

Over the last ten years the environmental concerns associated with the military activities have increased due to legislation pressure and an increasing awareness to the environmental issues. Such situation has leaded the defence industry and the Armed Forces to seek for a tool to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with ammunitions. Some methodologies have been applied to evaluate the environmental impacts and rank the different alternatives from an environmental point of view. Examples of those methodologies are the POEMS methodology (UK) and the MIDAS (USA), although the results delivered by these methodologies are very broad and the assessment of eventual environmental benefits from different production, use or disposal alternatives are difficult to evaluate.