Waste management and environmental impact of absorbent hygiene products: A review

Autor: Perla Xochitl Sotelo Navarro, Alethia Vázquez Morillas, Rosa María Espinosa Valdemar, Jéssica Paola Hermoso Lopez Araiza, Maribel Velasco Pérez
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy. :0734242X2095427
ISSN: 1096-3669
0734-242X
Popis: Absorbent hygiene products (AHP) have received much interest due to the notion that their end-of-life (EoL) stage has high environmental impacts. Since the use of AHP will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, information that helps with a reduction in the environmental impacts of AHP through their life cycle is needed. This research presents an estimation of AHP in municipal waste, and it also reviews and discusses waste management options, available treatments at bench, pilot or full scale, and life cycle assessments (LCAs) available in the literature. Municipal waste of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development contains on average 2.7% of baby nappies, 4.8% of adult nappies and 0.5% of sanitary pads (in weight), whereas that of Latin-American countries have 7.3%, 3.3%, and 0.9%, respectively. Management options for AHP waste in developed countries are landfilling and incineration, while in developing countries AHP are disposed of in dumpsites and landfills. Most LCAs identify significant environmental impacts in the production of raw materials, while EoL scenarios involving incineration and landfill were found to have a significant contribution to global warming potential. Substitution with alternative products has been suggested as a way of decreasing environmental impacts; however, their use frequently causes a trade-off on different impact categories. Municipalities could use a wide range of policy tools, such as extended producer responsibility systems, bans, levies, ecolabelling, or a combination of these, to reduce the environmental and economic burden of AHP waste.
Databáze: OpenAIRE