Decision making tools in the production systems of personal care products

Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment is a method of analyzing the environmental impact of products and services that considers their full life cycle. The goal of this study is to evaluate the ecological footprints and integrate results with ecolabelling approach for selected products. The product and the consumer use data were collected from industry. Environmental impacts of different formulations were conducted by using GaBi 6.0 Software, EcoInvent Database and CML Assessment Methodology. In this study the stages were selected as raw material acquisition, manufacturing, distribution, consumer use and disposal. Additional scenarios were applied to both products to assess the environmental performance improvements. Global warming, acidification, eutrophication, ozone layer depletion and photochemical ozone creation potentials were considered for both hair conditioner and oil spray products. Overall normalized environmental impacts were also assessed. The results of the study demonstrated that, for hair conditioner life cycle, the highest potential impacts for almost all of the impact categories resulted from consumption stage. In addition, for oil spray, the raw materials acquisition stage has the highest impact in overall life cycle. In the comparison of these two products, environmental impact potential of oil spray is lowered drastically in each category compared to regular hair conditioner.