Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method for assessing the environmental impact of products, processes and services.  Usually, LCA is used to evaluate the total environmental burdens and benefits over the entire life cycle for a product from “cradle” o “grave” including material and energy used during extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, reuse, recycling and end-of life disposal.

The continuously increasing global demand for consumer goods means that the production of metals can be expected to increase in the future. In 2015, Germany was the second country that imported the most amount of finished steel equivalent (21.9 million tonnes), just after United States ( with 42.7 million tonnes), and followed by France, UK and Canada. In 2017, the EU produced a total of 86.010 milion tonnes of iron, the seccond biggest producer in the world after Asia, with 844.802 million tonnes. 

EXTRACTION

The extraction of iron involves surface or underground mining techniques. The mining method used depends on a variety of factors, including the nature and location of the deposit and size, depth, and so on.  Underground mining requires more energy than surface mining due to greater requirements for hauling, ventilation, water pumping, and other operations.

• Drilling: the act of making a cylindrical hole for the purpose of exploration, blasting prepaaration, or tunneling. Drilling equipment includes explosive loader trucks, diamon drills, rotary drills, and so on. Drills are mainly run from electricity and diesel power.
• Blasting: it uses explisves to aid the extraction or removal of material to be mined by fracturing rock and ore using the energy released in the blast. The energy used in this process is derived from chemical energy. Optimizing blasting techniques will produce downstream energy savings, due to the reduction of the energy consumption of crushing and grinding processes.
• Crushing: a process to reduce the size of the run-of-mine material into coarse particles. Its efficiency depends on the efficiency of upstreams processes and, thereby, it has a significant effet on downstream processes.
• Stacking and stock piling: mechanical stackers are operated using diesel fuel-based machinery or electricity.
• Reclaiming and loading on container/vessel: reclaimers use diesel fuel for their energy source.
  
• Transport: Iron ores are transported from the mine site to the port for overseas export or toa local steelwork. It is usually transported by either rail or truck to a port, sometimes by ship. Also multirailer trucks are used fr local road transport.
• Auxiliary equipment: Other equipment used in the mines for road construction or maintenance, are usually run with diesel. 

On the left, you can see what steps are taken from the mine site to the moment that the iron is either shipped overseas or transported to a steel factory. I will not come into details of the energy used in numbers, because this is highly dependent on the mine size and others factors, as I explained before. However, I invite you to think about the energy that is invested in such processes, in every single step. How much diesel-based fuel, for example, is used  to just extract the mineral and take it to its destination to be transformed into a commodity that is present in our everyday life. And this is only the first stage of the whole cycle!

And not only energy usage and all that this means (diesel comes from refined crude oil, what involves more mining and its own environmental impact). Think also about the sites' sorroundings and the impact on its ecosystem and communities living there (see above for more info: "Environmental risks of mining").

Sources:

https://ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/B9781782421566000204/3-s2.0-B9781782421566000204-main.pdf?_tid=485a13de-f609-11e7-91fc-00000aacb362&acdnat=1515590719_cad629188eb3d2c3d37ad8810a26d5af

https://www.worldsteel.org/en/dam/jcr:d5d42110-212b-4b2f-bb0c-95f53833b7e9/iron+production_2017_12.pdf

https://www.worldsteel.org/en/dam/jcr:0474d208-9108-4927-ace8-4ac5445c5df8/World+Steel+in+Figures+2017.pdf 

There are infinite uses of iron in many forms (for more info, click here), from compounds like iron chloride (used for dying clothes) to buildng structures, pests prevention products, treating iron deficiency (...) to cars making, iron fences or stainless steel (found in your kitchen). All these products are present in our daily life and it would be unrealistic to tell you that we can give up all of them. However, there are some things we can opt out for just making the right decisions. 

Do you really need it? How many times have you bought something you don't really need? How many TV's, fridges, stainless steel items do you have in you house/your parents' house? Sometimes we mix up the terms "want" and "need" very easily. We buy, buy and buy things we don't really need ust for staying on trend or making our lifes more comfortable. Perhaps, it is time to start buying only what we really need.

How long do you use your stuff for? 

Do you know where your old phone/TV/fridge/... goes after you get rid of it? It is very important that you recycle your steel products. Steel has one outstanding characteristic: it can be endlessly recycled without its material qualities being compromised. So make sure that you dispose your waste properly in order to have a lower impact on the environment. 

How clean 'a clean spot' is?