Applying Social LCA to the Evaluation of the Home Laundry towards Reduction of Environmental Intervention

• Published in: Journal of the Japan Institute of Energy Vol. 83; no. 12; pp. 1021 - 1029
• Main Authors: NAGAYAM, Masuzo, YAMAGUCHI, Yoko, KUWAMURA, Noriko, TSUCHIYA, Misato
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Japan Institute of Energy 2004
• Subjects: CO2 emission; Consumer behavior; Home laundry; Life cycle assessment; Social LCA
• ISSN: 0916-8753; 1882-6121
• DOI: 10.3775/jie.83.1021

In recent years, changes in the family composition and lifestyles have increased the use of automatic washing machines that save energy and are less environmentally harmful. These factors, along with new developments such as compact powdered detergent, have led to changes in consumer home-laundry behav-ior. In place of a typical environmental life cycle product assessment (called ISO-LCA), we proposed the application of social life cycle assessment (called social LCA) as part of a comprehensive study of consumer behavior related to home laundry. In this study, we examined plans to reduce environmental impact during the overall life cycle, including the wear cycle of clothes, through the application of social LCA to two types of washing machines: the pulsator type and the drum type. We examined the effect of the mechanical action of pulsator-type and drum-type washing machines by measuring detergency using artificially soiled test clothes (JIS C 9606), by evaluating the raveling of MA test pieces (Technology Institute, Denmark), and by determining the shrinkage percentage of shirt collars. In addition, we measured the consumption of elec-tricity and the water volumes of the washing machines in a single cycle. Our study of the social LCA of the home laundry process has clarified that CO2 emissions during machine use are much greater than CO2 emissions during the actual manufacture of either type of washing machine. In addition, it has been clarified that the pulsator-type washing machine can reduce total CO2 emissions to a greater extent than the drum-type washing machine over its lifecycle with an increasing weight of clothes washed per load. Of all lifecycle stages, levels of CO2 emissions are highest during the period in which the wears phase. Furthermore, we found that the total CO2 emissions increased to the greatest extent if the drying process is included.