Comparison of different life‐cycle impact assessment methods for aquatic ecotoxicity

Abstract

Human and ecotoxicity impact categories are problematic to quantify within life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) because their local scope makes them difficult to aggregate with the traditional global-impact categories used in life-cycle assessment (LCA). For being able to assess local impacts such as toxicity, LCIA developers increasingly include fate modeling into LCA. This article follows this development by comparing different LCIA methods for aquatic ecotoxicology and by investigating the importance of fate within LCIA, the necessity of considering freshwater and seawater compartments separately, and the key degradation and intermedia transfer processes involved. The methods are compared by assessing an example study of domestic clothes washing in former West Germany. Four LCIA methods are selected and applied to four substances emitted during the washing process. The conclusion is that the consideration of environmental fate does matter and that aquatic ecotoxic impacts can differ significantly for the same substance in freshwater and in marine ecosystems. The way (bio)degradation, photolysis, volatilization, and transfer from agricultural soils are considered plays an important role as do the system boundaries chosen. This means that the LCIA methodology should remain flexible so that appropriate methods can be chosen for different applications. Fate models being developed in the environmental risk assessment of chemicals can contribute to the further improvement of LCIA methods.

Estimación del potencial de calentamiento global en un sistema de potabilización de un acueducto municipal en Colombia

“…Con relación a estudios previos se puede establecer que desde el año 2000, comienzan a reportarse trabajos en el marco de Análisis de Ciclo de Vida, para evaluar impactos ambientales de los sistemas de agua urbanos. Un primer trabajo publicado por [13], en el cual realiza la comparación de diferentes métodos de análisis de impacto por ciclo de vida para ecotoxicidad acuática, seguido por [10] quien desarrolló un procedimiento de evaluación del ciclo de vida para sistemas de agua urbanos en Suecia. Este estudio desarrolló un procedimiento iterativo que combina resultados empíricos y un marco analítico basado en la metodología ACV, usado en dos casos de estudio particulares: dos sistemas de agua urbana en dos regiones diferentes, una desarrollada (Göterborg, Suecia) y otra en desarrollo (King William´s Town, Sur África); que permitieron analizar los indicadores de sostenibilidad ambiental para cada estudio.…”

Is Unbleached Cotton Better Than Bleached? Exploring the Limits of Life-Cycle Assessment in the Textile Sector

“… Note. Q = quantitative LCI in the reference; q = qualitative discussion in the reference; A = inventory including chemicals has been made but only shown as aggregated results; Q1 = Cotton Incorporated (2012); q2 = Kalliala and Nousiainen (1999); A3 = Shen, Worrell, and Patel (2010); A4 = Barber and Pellow (2006); q5 = European Commission (2007); A6 = Boustead (2003); q7 = European Commission (2003); Q8 = Beck, Scheringer, and Hungerbühler (2000); Q9 = Yuan, Zhu, Shi, Liu, and Huang (2012); Q10 = Murugesh and Selvadass (2013); A11 = Krozer et al (2011); Q12 = Saouter, Perazzolo, and Steiner (2011); Q13 = Schulze et al (2001); A14 = Keoleian, Blackler, Denbow, and Polk (1997); Q15 = Hellweg, Demou, Scheringer, McKone, and Hungerbühler (2005); q16 = Zamani, Svanström, Peters, and Rydberg (2014). …”