Carbon footprint of hospital laundry: a life-cycle assessment.
BMJ Open
; 14(2): e080838, 2024 Feb 28.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38418230
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
To assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a regional hospital laundry unit, and model ways in which these can be reduced.DESIGN:
A cradle to grave process-based attributional life-cycle assessment.SETTING:
A large hospital laundry unit supplying hospitals in Southwest England. POPULATION All laundry processed through the unit in 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. PRIMARY OUTCOMEMEASURE:
The mean carbon footprint of processing one laundry item, expressed as in terms of the global warming potential over 100 years, as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).RESULTS:
Average annual laundry unit GHG emissions were 2947 t CO2e. Average GHG emissions were 0.225 kg CO2e per item-use and 0.5080 kg CO2e/kg of laundry. Natural gas use contributed 75.7% of on-site GHG emissions. Boiler electrification using national grid electricity for 2020-2022 would have increased GHG emissions by 9.1%, however by 2030 this would reduce annual emissions by 31.9% based on the national grid decarbonisation trend. Per-item transport-related GHG emissions reduce substantially when heavy goods vehicles are filled at ≥50% payload capacity. Single-use laundry item alternatives cause significantly higher per-use GHG emissions, even if reusable laundry were transported long distances and incinerated at the end of its lifetime.CONCLUSIONS:
The laundry unit has a large carbon footprint, however the per-item GHG emissions are modest and significantly lower than using single-use alternatives. Future electrification of boilers and optimal delivery vehicle loading can reduce the GHG emissions per laundry item.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Temas:
ECOS
/
Aspectos_gerais
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Gases de Efeito Estufa
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Pegada de Carbono
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMJ Open
/
BMJ open
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article