Calculating the toxicity footprint of Swedish clothing consumptionSandra Roos1, Rickard Arvidsson2, Christina Jönsson1

1 Swerea IVF, Sweden2 Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Financial support from the Mistra Future Fashion programme, the SUPFES project and Swerea IVF is gratefully acknowledged.

Toxicity is a major environmental challenge of the textile industry

Photo by Greenpeace

Photo by China Daily/Reuters

Kooistra et al., 2006© WWF / Mauri RAUTKARI

2%

98%

Arable land

25%

75%

Insecticide use

cotton

Conventional cotton is a known culprit

Fibre production

Dyeing and finishing

Use

End-of-life

Retail

– but is it enough to buy organic cotton?

Yarn production

Fabric production

Sewing

A = inventory including chemicals has been made but only shown as aggregated results,

Polyester Cotton Poly-

propyle

ne

Viscose/

modal

Polya-

mide

Acrylic Lyocell Wool Elastane

Life cycle phase:

Raw material extraction

Pesticides/fertilizers N/A Q1, q3, A2 N/A - N/A N/A A4 A5 N/A

Monomers and additives A2,q6,A7 N/A q6,A7 N/A A2,q6,A7 A2,q6A7 N/A N/A A2

Fibre spinning additives A2,q6,A7 N/A q6,A7 q6 A2,q6,A7 A2,q6,A7 A4,q6 N/A A2,q8

Production processes

Yarn spinning lubricants A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8

Sizing agents A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8

Knitting lubricants A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8

Scouring, desizing etc. A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8 A2,q8 q8 q8 A2,q8

Reactive continuous dyeing N/A Q9,Q10 q8 q8 N/A N/A q8 q8 N/A

Reactive exhaust dyeing N/A Q11 q8 q8 N/A N/A q8 q8 N/A

Disperse, direct, acid etc. dyeing q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8

Spin dyeing q8 N/A q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 N/A q8

Wet coating q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8

Dry coating q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8

Waste water treatment q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8

Printing processes q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8 q8

Transport biocides - - - - - - - - -

Use

Exposure to skin from wearing - - - - - - - - -

Leakage during washing - - - - - - - - -

Wet cleaning agents ---------------------------------- A12,Q13,Q14,A15--------------------------------------

Dry cleaning agents ----------------------------------------- A15,Q16-------------------------------------------

End of life

Emissions from incineration, landfill

leakage or recycling processes

q17 q17 - - - - - - -

Q = quantitative LCI in the reference

q = qualitative discussion in the publication(q8 = Textile BREF)

N/A = not applicable.

Create LCIs

Create CFs

LCIs needed to know

which chemicals to

develop CFs for

CFs needed to know which

chemicals that are relevant

to inventory

CAS REGISTRY has reached 100 million

chemical substances…

Create LCIs

>15,000 different chemicals

are used in the textile industry

LCI = Life Cycle InventoryCF = Characterisation factor

Create LCIsFunction-based nomenclature for

inventory data

=> generalisations can be made

UsersWet

treatment

Recipes

often trade secret

Garment

making

Fabric

production

Fiber

production

Brands and

retailers

Yarn

production

Material

distribution

Waste

collectors

Recycling

Textile input

chemicals

production

Base chemicals

production

New products with

unknown content

User exposure

+ Possible

emissions from

laundry

Em

iss

ion

s

to a

ir ,

wa

ter,

so

ila

nd

ind

oo

ra

ir:

Solvents

Carbon disulfide

Surfactants

Monomers

Catalysts

Spinning oils Needle oils

Sizing agents

Detergents

Lubricants

Stabilizers

Bleach

Dyestuff

Salts

Softeners

Finishing agents

Prints

COD

Stain removal

Spray bleaching

Finishing agents

Biocides

Container gas

Fuel combustion

(transports occur

between all steps)

Transport

Waste

treatmentRaw material

extraction

Pesticides

Fertilisers

Crude oil

Fracking agents

Textile production processes

Possible emissions

if inadequate waste

treatment

Step I. USEtoxendorsed databases

Step III. WOE approach: estimated

data + experimental

data from Step II

Step II. Experimental data

from other data

sources

Complete data set

and

MDQ?

CF-MDQ

CF-MDQ

CF-MDQ

Data gap

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No, no data

available

Complete data set

and

MDQ?

Complete data set

and

MDQ?

CF non-MDQ

No, some data

available

MDQ = Minimum Data QualityWOE = Weight -of-Evidence

Data source selection strategy for LCIA=> consistent development of CFs can be made Create CFs

Roos, S., Holmquist, H., Jönsson, C., Arvidsson, R. (2017) USEtox characterization factors for textile chemicals based on a transparent data source selection strategy. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, First Online: 01 June 2017.

Calculating the toxicity footprint of Swedish clothing consumptionSome particular conditions for Swedish clothing consumption are shown below.

Yearly consumption per Swede:10 kg 6 000 SEK50 pcs

European landfill ban on combustible waste

implemented in 2002

Results: Freshwater ecotoxicity impacts from the Swedish apparel sector over one year

(cradle to gate)

Cotton…

0,0E+00

5,0E+09

1,0E+10

1,5E+10

2,0E+10

2,5E+10

Fibreproduction

Yarnspinning

Fabricproduction

Wettreatment

Garmentproduction

Background processes Foreground processes

Results: Freshwater ecotoxicity impacts for black shirts – cotton vs. polyester

14%

56%

4%

22%

0%

Climate change potential from the different life cycles of a garment

Fibre production

Garment production

Distribution

Consumer transport

Laundry

Disposal

fibre production

yarn spinning

fabric production

wet treatment

finishing

sewing

distribution and retail

use

maintenance

waste treatment

3%

14%

56%

4%

22%

0%

Climate change potential from the different life cycles of a garment

Fibre production

Garment production

Distribution

Consumer transport

Laundry

Disposal

fibre production

yarn spinning

fabric production

wet treatment

finishing

sewing

distribution and retail

use

maintenance

waste treatment

14 %

3%

14%

56%

4%

22%

0%

Climate change potential from the different life cycles of a garment

Fibre production

Garment production

Distribution

Consumer transport

Laundry

Disposal

fibre production

yarn spinning

fabric production

wet treatment

finishing

sewing

distribution and retail

use

maintenance

waste treatment

70 %

3%

Conclusions and future work

• There is an enormous amount of chemicals used in the textile industry –

generalisation can be made via functionality thinking

• Characterisation factors are complex to develop, a data source selection strategy is

recommended in order to keep consistency

• Results show that dyeing and finishing of textiles is a larger burden to the environment

than is the cotton cultivation

• The yarn spinning, weaving and dyeing cause the major climate impacts in the textile

life cycle

Scientific Work for Industrial Use

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Thank you!

Questions?