Revision of the European Ecolabel Criteria for: Hand dishwashing detergents Preliminary Report

The EU Ecolabel criteria for hand dishwashing detergents are under revision. This revision process will take into account the current market conditions and the EU Ecolabel criteria will aim at addressing the most important environmental impacts of the hand dishwashing detergents in a life cycle perspective. The identification of the main hotspots is carried out in this study by means of an initial extensive literature review and subsequent LCA studies. LCA studies showed that the largest contribution to the environmental impact profile of hand dishwashing detergents is - by far - the use phase, particularly the energy needed to heat the water. For some impact categories, the sourcing of raw materials and the end of life are also important. Based on the normalisation assessment, by far the most important impact categories for hand dishwashing detergents in Europe are natural land transformation and fossil depletion. The study reveals that there are several improvement opportunities such reduction in the wash temperature or used of concentrated detergents. Changes in the detergent formulation can also reduce the impacts in different categories.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

LC‐IMPACT: A regionalized life cycle damage assessment method

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is a lively field of research, and data and models are continuously improved in terms of impact pathways covered, reliability, and spatial detail. However, many of these advancements are scattered throughout the scientific literature, making it difficult for practitioners to apply the new models. Here, we present the LC‐IMPACT method that provides characterization factors at the damage level for 11 impact categories related to three areas of protection (human health, ecosystem quality, natural resources). Human health damage is quantified as disability adjusted life years, damage to ecosystem quality as global species extinction equivalents (based on potentially disappeared fraction of species), and damage to mineral resources as kilogram of extra ore extracted. Seven of the impact categories include spatial differentiation at various levels of spatial scale. The influence of value choices related to the time horizon and the level of scientific evidence of the impacts considered is quantified with four distinct sets of characterization factors. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method with an illustrative life cycle assessment example of different fuel options in Europe (petrol or biofuel). Differences between generic and regionalized impacts vary up to two orders of magnitude for some of the selected impact categories, highlighting the importance of spatial detail in LCIA. This article met the requirements for a gold – gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Circular Economy of E-Waste in the Netherlands: Optimizing Material Recycling and Energy Recovery

In the Netherlands, waste electric and electronic equipment (e-waste) is an important point for discussion on the circular economy agenda. This paper shows the Dutch example of how “waste” can be turned into a resource, and the climate change benefits from appropriate collection and recycling. It describes the avoided emissions of CO2-equivalents due to e-waste recycling and appropriate removal and destruction of (H)CFCs contained in cooling and freezing appliances. Six different e-waste categories were included, and the results of 2016 were compared to previous years (2009–2015). In 2016, 110,000 tonnes of e-waste were collected. 80% of this was recycled to useful materials. Additionally, it resulted in 17% energy recovery. That year, the recycling of e-waste and the removal of (H)CFKs resulted in approximately 416,000 tonnes of avoided emissions of CO2-equivalents. Although the phasing out of cooling and freezing appliances with (H)CFKs led to a general decrease in the quantity of avoided CO2 emissions over time, removal of (H)CFKs still explained most of the avoided CO2 emissions. Material recycling appeared particularly beneficial for cooling and freezing appliances and small and large household appliances. The paper ends with reasons to further close the loop and ways forward to do so

The “Bad Labor” Footprint: Quantifying the Social Impacts of Globalization

The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with international trade is unknown. Here, we quantify the bad labor conditions associated with consumption in seven world regions, the “bad labor” footprint. In particular, we analyze how much occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, share of unskilled workers, child labor, and forced labor is associated with the production of internationally traded goods. Our results show that (i) as expected, there is a net flow of bad labor conditions from developing to developed regions; (ii) the production of exported goods in lower income regions contributes to more than half of the bad labor footprints caused by the wealthy lifestyles of affluent regions; (iii) exports from Asia constitute the largest global trade flow measured in the amount bad labor, while exports from Africa carry the largest burden of bad labor conditions per unit value traded and per unit of total labor required; and (IV) the trade of food products stands out in both volume and intensity of bad labor conditions

Revision of the European Ecolabel Criteria for: All-purpose cleaners, sanitary cleaners and window cleaners Preliminary Report

The EU Ecolabel criteria for all purpose cleaners, sanitary cleaners and window cleaners are under revision. This revision process will take into account the current market conditions and the EU Ecolabel criteria will aim at addressing the most important environmental impacts of the all-purpose cleaners in a life cycle perspective. The identification of the main hotspots is carried out in this study by means of an initial extensive literature review and subsequent LCA studies. LCA studies showed that sourcing of the raw materials is the most relevant environmental aspect followed by heating up the water during cleaning if needed. Based on the normalisation assessment, by far the most significant impact category for all-purpose cleaners in Europe is natural land transformation. These findings are in agreement with the published literature and can be extrapolated to other all-purpose cleaners such as sanitary cleaners and window cleaners. The study reveals that there are several improvement opportunities such as cleaner concentration which can bring savings in resources or reduction in the wash temperature. Changes in the detergent formulation can also reduce the impacts in different categories.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Revision of the European Ecolabel Criteria for: Laundry detergents and Industrial and institutional laundry detergents Preliminary report

The EU Ecolabel criteria for laundry detergents and industrial and institutional laundry detergents are under revision. This revision process will take into account the current market conditions and the EU Ecolabel criteria will aim at addressing the most important environmental impacts of the laundry detergents (consumer and industrial and institutional detergents) in a life cycle perspective. The identification of the main hotspots is carried out in this study by means of an initial extensive literature review and subsequent LCA studies. LCA studies shown that the energy used for heating the washing water during the use stage, has an impact in all the environmental categories under study but especially on fossil fuel depletion and global warming potential. The extraction and processing of raw materials that cause impacts on the categories such as mineral depletion, land use and energy use as well as the emissions to the environment (discharge of wastewater) has also impacts of importance depending on the scenario under consideration. The study reveals that there are several improvement opportunities such as detergent compaction which can bring savings in resources or reduction in the wash temperature. Changes in the detergent formulation can also reduce the impacts in different categories.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

MOESM1 of A compilation of life cycle studies for six household detergent product categories in Europe: the basis for product-specific A.I.S.E. Charter Advanced Sustainability Profiles

Additional file 1. In the Supplement Material section, the detergent product formulations, inventory data used to model the detergents and the packaging, key assumptions used in the study, the LCIA method structure, and aggregated midpoint results are provided