Comprehensive assessment methods of environmental impacts during textile production

Abstract

As an important part of textile production, the dyeing process not only makes the greatest contribution to water consumption and wastewater discharge, but its use of synthetic dyestuffs has a negative impact on all forms of life. To assess the environmental impact of textile production, it is necessary to assess the environmental impact of the dyeing process. Comprehensive assessment methods can convert multi-dimensional environmental impacts into unified quantitative indicators and enable comparisons between different products or environmental impact categories. In this study, five comprehensive assessment methods (i.e., ReCiPe, Eco-Indicator 99, Nike MSI, Environmental Price, and Environmental Profit & Loss) were applied to evaluate the environmental impact of the cotton fabric dyeing process. Furthermore, a preliminary assessment framework was constructed which could provide a reference for industry experts to establish uniform environmental assessment standards. The results indicate that diverse methods are recommended to be applied in parallel to analyse the environmental impact of textile products, and the use of individual comprehensive environmental assessment methods has its limitations and characteristics. Among the five methods, the ReCiPe method stands out as one of the most advanced LCA methodologies with the widest range of midpoint impact categories and a global-scale calculation mechanism. The scoring method offers sufficient possibilities to compare the severity of different environmental impacts caused by the dyeing process, and the monetary value model can be used as a more intuitive tool to characterize environmental impact no matter from the midpoint or endpoint.