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life cycle assessment of disposable razors
Kaplan, Desire. The LCA is broken into four stages: Defining the goal and scope how much of a product's lifecycle will be addressed, the reasons for carrying out the assessment, the intended audience, and the intended end-use [] What Is Polystyrene? Several clinical trials comparing function and ease of placement demonstrated no significant difference between disposable and reusable versions,25 allowing hospitals to base purchase decisions on economic considerations alone. Sinha R, Sunder R. Retiring reusable laryngeal mask airways after 40: an anaesthetist's dilemma. Ask a worker if you can put them in the bin by themselves or if they need to be in a recyclable container to protect sanitation workers from being cut. Product Ecology (PR) Consultants. Growing awareness of the negative impacts from the practice of health care on the environment and public health calls for the routine inclusion of life cycle criteria into the decision-making process of device selection. Comparative environmental and human health (HH) impacts for disposable and reusable laryngeal mask airways (LMA), Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) impact assessment method. The alloy must allow for easy manufacturing due to the high demand of disposable razors and enough strength to last through transportation and shelf holding. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a modeling tool for quantifying the environmental impacts of products and processes. Polycarbonate production (14%), transportation via truck (15%), thermoforming (13%), and waste disposal (11%) cause the majority of the remaining emissions. The total amount of Direct emissions from BIC factories was 8,689 tonnes of carbon dioxide (For You For Everyone Registration Document). Sensitivity and simple life cycle cost analyses were conducted to aid in interpretation of the results. Life Cycle Assessment | EcoAct To begin the process of making tungsten carbide, the tungsten must first be extracted. During shaving, the sharp edges of the blade will chip off at a slow but steady rate, dulling the blade after repeated shavings. The original LMA was a reusable device (Intavent International SA, Henley-on-Thames, UK). Erosion time for the blades was difficult to find, yet tungsten steel does erode faster than the plastic elements to the disposable razor due to the carbon alloys brittle makeup. After the products are packaged, there has to be a way for them to get to the end consumer. The steps in LCA are (1) goal and scope definition, (2) life cycle inventory analysis (LCI), (3) life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and (4) interpretation of the results. An estimated 1 L of tap water was used to wash and rinse 1 LMA (or 40 L over a lifetime of 40 uses). Life cycle assessment of bio-based products: a disposable diaper case The majority of life cycle human health impacts of disposable LMAs are caused by PVC use in packaging and the device itself. (PDF) A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Disposable - academia.edu Recycling of Polypropylene (PP). AZoCleantech.com, 25 June 2012, www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=240. At the end of applying the additives, the blades are once again heated, to cement the coating onto the blade. Steel Life Cycle.SSAB, www.ssab.com/company/sustainability/sustainable-offering/steel-life-cycle?di=discover21C927E58ECC41198B78D915F7E3E2AF. What's the Difference Between Disposable and Reusable Razors for Women?Venus, www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/womens-shaving-guide/learning-to-shave/disposable-razors-vs-refillable-razors/. This is because of the complexity of the life cycle, from the acquisition of materials to the management of a product at the end of its life. Iatrogenic transmission of the CreutzfeldtJakob disease agent has been reported in >250 patients worldwide, and 6 of these were linked to the use of contaminated equipment, all of which were neurosurgical related. The study found that: The cartridge-based razor had a slightly higher impact due to the rubber parts which cant be separated from the plastic body. Life Cycle Assessment - GDRC At 20 reuse cycles,16 the results indicate an increase in emissions of nearly 20%. Life Cycle Assessment - Sustainability Guide LeBlanc, Rick. Additionally, the PVC-dominated material composition of the disposable LMA and associated packaging added significantly to its impacts. Sherman JD, Ryan S. Ecological responsibility in anesthesia practice. Metal materials are sent for smelting and conversion to new alloys (Terracycle). . The reusable LMA was found to have a more favorable environmental profile than the disposable LMA as used at Yale New Haven Hospital. The total energy consumption of the Babyplast in its four-step molding cycle of setup, fill, cool, and reset was approximately 4.5 kilowatts (Weissman et.al). Olsen, Alexandra. The advantage of using this method compared to a more comprehensive LCA method is that its much simpler to carry out and to gather the required information because the data regarding the most common materials and processes has been collected in advance. The life cycle assessment results shown here allow clinicians and health care administrators to understand the balance between direct benefits of a given LMA choice to local patient care and the environmental and human health impacts of that choice that occur far from the operating room. The more capital-intensive option of increasing the energy efficiency of the autoclave machines by 10% decreases GHG emissions by 8%. Disposable BIC razors are hollow and made using injection molding, but making the razors hollow is only possible because of the fluid nature of polystyrene (The Bic Razor, Still the Sharpest of the Bunch.). Siddle, Dave. Interpretation of results The last step in the process is to interpret the results and compare them against each other. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Transportation, 2002, 14. This document is an update and merger of two previous EPA documents on LCA ("Life Cycle Assessment: Inventory Guidelines and Principles," EPA/600/R-92/245, and "LCA101" from the LCAccess, website . Please try again soon. By not using air travel and transport, BIC greatly reduces their energy usage and carbon footprint at the same time. Flying staff to meetings, shipping, and distributing the product is the highest offender for the planet. What IS Life Cycle Assessment? Select patients who are highly infective warrant the choice of disposable devices; however, data do not support selecting disposables for all patients to avoid any possible risk of infection. Anesth Analg 1998;87:921, 3. Cited Here. These containers, mainly wooden pallets and spools, are subject to European legislat Our LCA team retains its reputation as the most experienced life cycle staff in North America. For climate change impacts specifically, the reusable LMA contributes 7.4 kg CO2e of GHGs over its life cycle, and the equivalent 40 disposable LMAs contribute 11.3 kg CO2e, or approximately the equivalent to burning a gallon (4 L) of gasoline. A complete life cycle cost analysis would complement the life cycle assessment results shown here; however, a simple analysis reveals that, assuming full utilization, a $200 reusable LMA costs $5 per use, plus $3 per cleaning for a unit cost of $8, excluding utility and hospital overhead costs. There is always some level of uncertainty in the results and in the methodology; so users shouldnt take the numbers shown as absolute values, but more as a guide to prioritise work. PDF A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Compostable and Reusable Takeout We performed a life cycle assessment of 2 analogous LMAs, the disposable LMA Unique and the reusable LMA Classic, according to internationally accepted standard life cycle assessment methods (ISO 14040: 2006). Contrary to common expectation, hair is actually pretty hard. On the basis of observation at Yale New Haven Hospital, it takes approximately 10 minutes to conduct all cleaning processes for 1 LMA, which is equivalent to roughly $3 in wages. How One Company Keeps Used Razors Out Of Oceans.Green Matters, Green Matters, 25 Sept. 2017, www.greenmatters.com/news/2017/09/25/Z1oInGt/razors-ocean. At an average of 10 reuse cycles, GHG impacts increase by >50%, and this is the break-even point at which the GHG emissions from reusable and disposable LMAs are essentially equal. If you count the actual razor cover (if you haven't lost it long ago) then it will be four pieces for recycling. Int Anesthesiol Clin 2010;48:139, 24. Since then, around 60 billion razors have been produced, distributed, and sold worldwide. An LCA is a life cycle assessment which is completed through research, testing and understanding of the environmental impacts a particular item creates through it's resources use/ production/distribution/disposal. Previous studies have examined the relative environmental profiles of reusables and disposables with regard to medical textiles7 and anesthetic drug trays.8 The present study uses life cycle assessment to evaluate the life cycle impacts of disposable and reusable LMAs across several categories of environmental and human health impacts. However, it is fairly easy to find what the disposable razors components are made of, due to its simplicity. BIC currently holds around 11 percent market share in disposable razors (Nash). The differences in environmental impacts between these devices may present a compelling consideration in device selection when concern for infection transmission is not a factor. Upgrading to a new, energy-efficient autoclave machine leads to a nearly equal reduction in life cycle GHG emissions and may be considered particularly in instances in which older equipment is being used. Silver Spring, MD: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2002, 26. The polypropylene is sorted during recycling using a float test that separates it from other materials based on its ability to float due to its weight, then it is often melted down and reused in other product manufacturing. DEHP is a plasticizer routinely added to impart flexibility to PVC-based products, such as IV bags, tubing, and endotracheal tubes. For me, I had a few extra bits of plastic that I snapped off because they . Gillette Plastic Disposable Shaving Kit supermax, for Hotel. Despite the overall lower impacts of the reusable LMA, there are still several ways that its environmental profile could be improved, as suggested by the results shown in Table 2. Through an examination of how the raw materials: carbide steel, tungsten steel, and a combination of the plastics: polypropylene, polystyrene, and phenylene oxide of the razors decompose, and how much waste is accumulated in making the razors, an assessment can be made for the duration of their life cycle. 4.Complete the form According to studies done by the EPA, tungsten steel was originally tested as a stable metal in soil that does not dissolve easily in water (EPA). Polystyrene is not biodegradable and takes hundreds of years to break down. 39 ($0.37/Count) FREE delivery Thu, Mar 2 on $25 of items shipped by Amazon. In landfilling or incinerating this part, the large amount of energy and material value used in creating it is lost. WC2N 6EZ, Redesigning the razor Life Cycle Assessment. There is also an additional resin called fluorine resin that is applied to the blades, which allows them to freely glide on the skin. 45. Bic has attempted to lower their direct emissions by having factories world-wide and creating: a Transport Community which connects shipping managers on each continent to raise control for greenhouse gas emissions, optimize shipments and routes, and use only responsible carriers (Bic).