Rent or Buy? A Comparative LCA of Reusable vs. Disposable Textile Products
Agenda
1. Project Summary 2. LCA results 3. Conclusions
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Project Summary
Project Goal Compare reusable vs. disposable textiles Isolation Gown
Wiper (Shop Towel)
Premium Napkin
Study commissioned by Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA)
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Scope System Boundary
Cradle-to-Grave assessment – production, transport, use, and disposal
Lacking industry data on the prevalence of one product or another, we evaluated best, mid, and worst case scenarios for both reusables and disposables.
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• • • • • • •
Delivery distance & utilization Product weight Manufacturing energy Number of uses Washing energy Recycled content High or low impact pulp & papermaking
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Scope Functional Unit of 100 Use Cases Disposables
Reusables n uses before replacement Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Laundry
Landfill
n uses before replacement Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Laundry
Landfill
n uses before replacement Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Laundry
Landfill
Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing Customer Use Event Use Customer Event Use Customer Event Use Customer Event Use Customer Event Landfill Landfill Landfill Landfill Landfill
‌ until 100 uses have been provided
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Scope Reference Flows Affected by the range of product weights and number of uses Reusable Isolation Gowns’ number of uses range from 49 (worst case) to 64 (median) to 98 (best case).
Reusable
Reusable Napkins’ number of uses range from 19 (worst case) to 49 (median) to 89 (best case).
Isolation Gown
Shop Towel
Napkin
1.02 – 2.04 PET gowns, [0.313 - 0.739 kg]
8.33 recycled cotton towels [0.227 – 0.265 kg]
1.12 - 5.17 PET napkins [0.036 – 0.263 kg]
100 pulp & PET towels [0.98 kg]
100 premium paper napkins [0.57 – 2.35 kg]
Disposable 100 PP gowns [14.5 kg – 22.2 kg]
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Reusable Shop Towels last approximately 12 uses.
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Data Collection Reusables n uses
Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Product Composition Gown – PET fiber Wiper – Recycled cotton Napkin – PET fiber
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Laundry
Manufacturing Literature & primary data • Energy • Water • Waste
Landfill
Number of uses* Gown – 64 times Wiper – 12 times Napkin – 49 times * Median number of uses
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Data Collection Reusables n uses
Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Transport 110 mile delivery route for wipers 70 mile route for gowns and napkins
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Laundry
Landfill
Laundry Survey of 70 TRSA laundry sites as part of Clean Green certification • Energy • Water • Emissions
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Data Collection Disposables
Manufacturing
Customer Use Event
Landfill
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Product Composition Gown – PP fiber Wiper – Pulp & PET fiber Napkin – Pulp Manufacturing Literature & primary data • Energy • Water • Waste Transport Assumed delivery of 100 miles (best case) or 250 miles (worst case) 10
LCA results
Life Cycle Impact Assessment Impact category selection TRACI 2.1 Impact Categories: − Acidification Potential (AP)
[kg SO2 eq];
− Eutrophication Potential (EP)
[kg N eq];
− Global Warming Potential (GWP)
[kg CO2 eq];
− Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP)
[kg CFC 11 eq];
− Smog Creation Potential (Smog)
[kg O3 eq];
Environmental Indicator: − Primary Energy Demand (PED)
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[MJ lower heating value]
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Example results chart Worst Best Worst Mid-High Mid-Low Best
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Isolation gown results
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Isolation gown results
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Wiper results
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Wiper results
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Napkin results
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment Napkin results
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Conclusions
Conclusions Reusables’ impacts are dominated by use phase washing and, to a limited extent, by raw materials.
Reusable isolation gowns have lower impact than disposables in every impact considered, except ODP. Reusable wipers have lower impact than disposables in every impact considered, except EP.
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Disposables’ impacts are driven by raw materials, followed by manufacturing energy.
For napkins, there is no clear superiority of reusables over disposables – the best and worst case scenarios overlap each other.
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Recommendations to TRSA • Improvements should focus on raw materials and washing energy demand
• Sourcing low-energy or recycled materials is especially important for products made from paper
• Significant improvements can be made through reducing washing energy demand
• Transportation is only a minor contributor across all scenarios
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Questions?
John Jewell – j.jewell@pe-international.com Ken Koepper – kkoepper@trsa.org
Normalization Impacts of worst case disposable gown divided by US per-capita emissions ODP emissions are much smaller (~10 -8 range) so are less relevant
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Sensitivity analysis – Disposable napkin scenarios Isolating the effects of changing delivery distance & utilization, product weight, recycled content, and high or low impact paper
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Sensitivity analysis – Reusable napkin scenarios Isolating the effects of changing delivery distance & utilization, product weight, number of uses, manufacturing energy, and washing scenarios
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