Publication detail

How sustainable are the biodegradable medical gowns via environmental and social life cycle assessment?

Zhao, X., Klemeš, J.J., Saxon, M., You, F.

Original Title

How sustainable are the biodegradable medical gowns via environmental and social life cycle assessment?

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

The growing disposable medical gown consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic has driven tons of waste to landfills and posed plastic pollution. Investigating the pros and cons of biodegradable gowns over conventional counterparts can guide disposable medical gowns to be environmentally and socially sustainable. This work presents environmental and social life cycle assessments (E− and S-LCA) of biodegradable gowns to compare their environmental and social performances with conventional ones. The E-LCA evaluates the full-spectrum environmental impacts from gown production to end-of-life waste management processes, while the S-LCA assesses their associated influence on economic growth, employment, and worker welfare. The social impacts are evaluated based on the economic input-output analysis results of the economic sectors or gown life cycle stages involved in the gown value chain. Results show that biodegradable gown production poses 10.76% higher ecotoxicity than conventional alternatives contributed by pro-oxidant manufacturing. Integrating the landfill gas (LFG) capture and utilization processes into biodegradable gown waste treatment can reduce 48.81% of life cycle land use and over 5.67% of total greenhouse gas emissions. However, integrating this process in sanitary landfills to treat disinfected gown wastes can increase technical complexity, which enhances 70% of safety risks and 40% frequency of forced labor. Industrial composting biodegradable gowns can reduce over 20.5% of particulate matter formation versus sanitary landfills. Overall, fossil-based gowns possess full-spectrum environmental and social advantages over biodegradable counterparts treated by industrial composting and sanitary landfills. If improving the efficiencies of LFG capture by 85%, biogenic methane oxidation by 43%, and heat generation by 85%, biodegradable gowns can outperform conventional counterparts in reducing GHG emissions and fossil fuel use.

Keywords

Industrial composting; Landfill gas capture and utilization; Life cycle assessment; Medical disposable gown; Sanitary landfill

Authors

Zhao, X., Klemeš, J.J., Saxon, M., You, F.

Released

20. 12. 2022

Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

ISBN

0959-6526

Periodical

Journal of Cleaner Production

Number

380

State

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Pages from

135153

Pages to

135153

Pages count

16

URL

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622047278

BibTex

@article{BUT180402,
  author="Jiří {Klemeš}",
  title="How sustainable are the biodegradable medical gowns via environmental and social life cycle assessment?",
  journal="Journal of Cleaner Production",
  year="2022",
  number="380",
  pages="16",
  doi="10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135153",
  issn="0959-6526",
  url="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622047278"
}