Simplified LCA to Identify Ecosystem Based Detergent-Policies for the Danube Basin Countries

Abstract

Phosphorus is the nutrient that most often limits growth in freshwater systems. A major part of the Black Sea is critically eutrophic, because there has been an enormous increase in the nutrient load to the Sea in the past 25 years, probably as a consequence of the widespread use of phosphate detergents and fertilisers in the Danube Basin.

The removal of P from detergents is the fastest way to reduce P-discharge into surface water; however all appropriate steps should be taken to encourage industries to develop phosphate substitutes that are harmless to the environment. A simplified LCA study was completed in the frame of the EU PHARE Project on Removal of Phosphate from Detergents in the Danube Basin Countries (Detergent Project). A consortium consisting of SENATOR Consult Ltd. and VITUKI Consult Rt. (Hungary), RIIDHE (Research Institute for Irrigation, Drainage and Hydraulic Engineering, Bulgaria) and WRI (Water Research Institute, Slovakia) was formed specifically for the purposes of this project. In addition to the consortium, experts from the EU member countries and local organisations and experts from the Danube Basin countries worked on the project.

The Detergent Project was funded by the PHARE Programme of the Commission of the European Union on the advice of the Danube Programme Coordination Unit, Vienna. However, the findings, interpretation and conclusions expressed in this paper should not be attributed in any manner to the Commission of the European Union, to the Danube Programme Co-ordination Unit, or to the countries they represent.

The overall objective of the Detergent Project was to support the riparian countries in the Danube Basin to eliminate phosphorous from detergents as soon as technically possible and economically and environmentally justified. The study aimed at providing support for the preparation of integrated, coherent detergent-policy and strategy in the Danube Basin and for the integration of LCA with other tools into processes that aid water quality decision-making, combining environmental life cycle thinking with economic and social decision-making criteria. The countries studied were Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Moldavia and Bulgaria.

According to the objectives of the Detergent Project, those criteria have to be developed for detergents which lead to a reduced environmental impact during their entire life cycle. The criteria were based on the results of a simplified LCA approach. It is apparent that the criteria are of different importance and should be of different weight in the final scoring result.

The results of the environmental impact studies confirmed that the emissions to waste water/water are the most important ones. Whereas the packaging of the detergents is dealing with an impact to soil (dumping sites), air (combustion of packaging waste) and recycling management, the detergent ingredients are solely related to an impact on waste water/water.

It is a result of the current discussion in LCA for laundry detergents that the impact and effects on different environmental compartments should be assessed separately but can be combined to a final result by appropriate assessments. All the environmental loadings that occur during the life-cycle of detergents have to be studied.