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Could the recycled yarns substitute for the virgin cotton yarns: a comparative LCA

  • LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Cotton yarns spun from natural fibers are widely used in the apparel industry. Most of waste cotton goods are now disposed by incineration or landfill, which brings resource and environmental challenges to the society. Using the waste cotton to spin yarns is an alternative way to forward a more sustainable future. In this research, two scenarios for the environmental impacts of yarns spun from corresponding fibers are investigated, including recycled cotton fibers and virgin cotton fibers.

Methods

The life cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted according to the collected data from on-site investigation of typical production factories. The life cycle for the recycled cotton yarn production is divided into five stages, i.e., raw material acquisition, transportation, breaking, mixing, and spinning. The life cycle of virgin cotton yarn production is been divided into four stages, i.e., raw material acquisition, transportation, mixing, and spinning. The functional unit is 1000 kg produced yarns which are used for weaving into the fabrics. Notable impacts on climate change, fossil depletion, water depletion, and human toxicity were observed.

Results

The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results show that environmental impacts of recycled cotton yarns are far less than those of virgin cotton yarns, except for climate change and water depletion. The reason is that the land occupation and irrigation water have great impact on environmental impacts of cotton cultivation. In spinning, the electricity is the key factor whose environmental impacts account for the most in the virgin cotton yarn scenario, while the electricity and water consumptions are the key factors for the recycled cotton yarn scenario in the life cycle of yarn production. The sensitivity analysis indicates that improving energy efficiency can significantly reduce environmental burdens for both the two scenarios. The uncertainty distribution of water depletion, human toxicity, fossil depletion, and climate change of the two scenarios were determined with a 90% confidence interval.

Conclusions

The LCIA results reveal recycled cotton yarn is a viable alternative to relieve resource and environmental pressure. About 0.5 ha of agricultural land can be saved, 6600 kg CO2 eq can be reduced, and 2783 m3 irrigation water can be saved by using 1000 kg of the recycled cotton yarns. It can be concluded that the recycled cotton fibers can be served as a substitute for virgin cotton fibers to reduce agricultural land and avoid environmental impacts generated from the cotton planting.

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Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51722502).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei, 230009, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Liu, Haihong Huang, Libin Zhu, Feiyue Ren & Zhifeng Liu

  2. Key Laboratory of Green Design and Manufacturing of Mechanical Industry, Hefei University of Technology, 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei, 230009, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Liu, Haihong Huang, Libin Zhu, Feiyue Ren & Zhifeng Liu

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, Nantong University, 9 Seyuan Road, Nantong, 226019, People’s Republic of China

    Cheng Zhang

Authors
  1. Yun Liu
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  2. Haihong Huang
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  3. Libin Zhu
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  4. Cheng Zhang
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  5. Feiyue Ren
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  6. Zhifeng Liu
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Correspondence to Haihong Huang.

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Responsible editor: Zuoren Nie

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Liu, Y., Huang, H., Zhu, L. et al. Could the recycled yarns substitute for the virgin cotton yarns: a comparative LCA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 25, 2050–2062 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01815-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01815-8

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