Carbon footprint of production processes of polypropylene nonwoven shopping bags

This article reports on the carbon footprint of production processes of polypropylene nonwoven shopping bags made out of two different manufacturing technologies (Products A and B, made by the conventional sewing and thermal joining methods) assessed from their cradle to the gate stage using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technique. This study was performed based on the comprehensive Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of two different manufacturing sequences obtained from a detailed in-field study of the nonwoven PP bag manufacturing industry. The environmental impacts were quantified by means of the IPCC 2007 GWP V 1.1. method in SIMAPRO 7.2. The carbon footprint expressed in terms of the global warming potential (kg CO₂ values for 20 and 100 years), calculated by IPCC 2007 methods, was considered as a directive to compare the environmental impact of these bags, manufactured by the two different technologies, and a detailed explanation of the results is provided in this paper. From the results of carbon footprint modelling, product A, made by conventional sewing technology, was found to be better than product B, made by thermal technology. A detailed explanation of the results of the environmental performance of these bags as well as the hot-spots in both production technologies are discussed to a greater extent in this article.