Scenario building and parameterization for prospective life cycle assessment of a reusable half mask used in healthcare

Abstract

Healthcare sector is progressively attempting to mitigate its environmental footprint, and the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted some critical issues with supply chain and environmental burdens of PPE especially respiratory protection. While existing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies of respiratory protection are done under present conditions with available data, it limits the ability to assess an emerging technology where the design, use behaviour, and surrounding system is expected to evolve in future.

Therefore, this study aims to systematically develop future-oriented scenarios for prospective LCA of Easy2reUse reusable elastomeric half mask in healthcare settings. The study employs Scenario-based Inventory Modelling for Prospective Life Cycle Assessment (SIMPL) framework which identifies key factors with future-oriented assumptions to develop consistent scenarios. The results identified epidemic state, care setting and climate policy as the key factors expected to influence the future performance of the mask system. The combination of three socio-economic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP3-7.0) and two epidemic states (pandemic and non-pandemic) was translated into six internally consistent scenarios.

The study extends existing parameter-based scenario comparison to a systematic prospective scenario development which considers not only technological factors but also the broader socio-economic changes into the life cycle assessment. This provides a foundation for future prospective inventory modelling of reusable respirators and supports the identification of hotspots for Easy2reUse mask to make sustainable system choices once the quantitative assessment is done.