Choose an environmentally End-of-Life (EoL) strategy is not an easy task. From a Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) point of view, depending on the processes and destinations applied after use, the entire life cycle is
affected, even earlier steps, such as the acquisition of raw materials and manufacturing. This paper aimed
to assess the environmental impacts of an air compressor in Brazil, from cradle to the grave, with focus
on the comparison of three waste management alternatives. We defined a Remanufacturing, Recycling
and Landfilling scenarios following European Directive on waste management hierarchy. LCA methodology
was applied to evaluate the potentials impacts on Global Warming, Abiotic Resource Depletion,
Total Cumulative Energy Demand and Land Occupation based on primary data collected by the Original
Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The case study indicates that the hotspot of this product system occurs
in the use phase due the high demand of energy during its long life span. This predominance is such that
it overcomes the differences among the three EoL scenarios. Removing this phase in LCA’s result interpretation
we found that for all categories Remanufacturing has the best environmental performance
followed by Recycling and Landfilling. Remanufacturing was able to reduce the environmental impact by
more than 40% compared to Landfilling through a reduced consumption of raw materials, manufacturing
processes and environmental gains of avoided products.