Advances, Norms, and Perspectives in Product Chemical Footprint Research

Yi, Li; Cheng, Yiman; Zhou, Luyao; Yang, Yongliang

doi:10.3390/ijerph18052728

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) is an organization comprised of more than 160 brands from the fashion and footwear industries to work toward zero discharge of hazardous chemicals. It was formed in 2011 to help leather industries comply with the restricted substances in leather products by ensuring safer use of chemicals throughout the supply chain [ 43 ]. The participating brands commit to comply with a Restricted Substances List and report on results from wastewater testing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical and technological constraints facing Tanzania leather value chain: a snapshot of intervention measures

et al. 2022

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The leather value chain starts with livestock, the key source of hides and skins, and the main raw materials for the industry. Despite having the second-largest livestock population in Africa, Tanzania is only the 11th largest exporter of leather on the continent, underlining the disproportionate contribution of the sector to the economy. This study presents the results of a recent assessment aimed at identifying performance bottlenecks in Tanzania's leather sector. The assessment took place in October–December 2020 and involved 10 tanneries, 30 leather goods factories and 11 service providers/institutions. Findings reveal that 90% of tanneries are dissatisfied with the quality of hides and skins due to brand marks, flay cuts, skin diseases, and inadequate curing. These supply chain bottlenecks are further compounded by skill deficiencies among processors, poor waste management, and limited awareness about laws, policies and regulations governing trade in the sector. At the downstream end of the value chain, the trade in leather and related articles is facing competition from high importation of low-grade products like plastic shoes and second-hand products. This paper recommends that efforts to increase leather's economic and trade value need to focus on upgrading Tanzania’s production, processing, branding and marketing capacities. Graphical Abstract

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical and technological constraints facing Tanzania leather value chain: a snapshot of intervention measures

et al. 2022

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“…Since ChF is a relatively new metric, there is no consensus among experts on its definition. For example, Li et al [3] have pointed out that the ChF definition depends on the perspective of the study, presenting different definitions including those from a natural ecosystem perspective, an environmental space occupancy, and also from qualitative perspectives. The non-governmental organization chemicalfootprint.org [4] defines ChF as "the total mass of chemicals of high concern used by an event, organization, service, building, or product."…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Footprint as an Indicator of Health Impacts: The Case of Dioxins and Furans in Brazil

et al. 2023

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Humans are exposed to several chemical substances during their regular daily activities that can be harmful even in low quantities. Accounting for the mass of a given released chemical may not be appropriate for the assessment of its toxicological impact. To overcome the lack of a systemic perspective of mass-based assessments, methods such as the chemical footprint (ChF) are an alternative to account for a given chemical’s environmental and human toxicological impacts, a task that is considered essential in order to achieve the Agenda 2030 for sustainability. Among others, persistent organic pollutants (POP) should receive attention due to their high potential impact. Using the USEtox model to estimate indicators of human health impact, this study proposes an approach to calculate ChF for dioxins and furans and applies it to Brazil as a case study. The USEtox model quantifies human health impacts from the characterization of factors of a given chemical. Results show that ChF for dioxins and furans is approximately 620 DALY, representing a potential loss of 620 years of life in the Brazilian population. Social costs related to dioxins and furans emissions achieved USD 30 million, translating into monetary values not found in the existing literature. Besides highlighting the impacts of chemical emissions on the Brazilian population, this work contributes to the advances in methods for quantifying more appropriately such impacts beyond the exclusive use of mass units, in turn supporting sustainability-related public policies.

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“…The initial application of ChF methods was focused on sector‐level, macroscale ecosystem impacts of agricultural and chemical pollutants (Bjorn et al, 2014 ; Sala & Goralcyk, 2013 ; Zijp et al, 2014 ). However, product‐level ChFs have been developed more recently for textile and pharmaceutical products, and Li et al ( 2021 ) noted that these studies primarily use a weighted toxicity approach derived from LCA and USETox. Further advancements for regionalizing product ChFs have been proposed (Makarova et al, 2018 ; Wang, 2019 ), but a clear path forward has yet to be established.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regionalized chemical footprint method to identify aquatic ecotoxicity hotspots of hard disk drive rare‐earth magnets

Hua

2022

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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The chemical footprint (ChF), which combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and quantitative risk assessment principles, shows promise for exploring localized toxicity impacts of manufacturing processes, which is not achievable with LCA alone. An updated ChF method was applied to the global annual production of a hard disk drive (HDD) rare-earth element (REE) magnet assembly, assuming a supply chain in East and Southeast Asia. Existing REE magnet assembly LCA inventories were combined with supplier manufacturing locations to create a cradle-to-gate spatial unit process inventory. Emissions from the electricity grid for each manufacturing site were downscaled to hydrobasins of interest using the Global Power Plant Database. The predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) was chosen as the ecotoxicity pollution boundary to determine the threshold for dilution of each chemical of concern (CoC) and to calculate the ChF. Finally, a high-resolution hydrological database provided volumes of the freshwater river reach draining each hydrobasin and was used to calculate the dilution capacity (DC), that is, the volume required to remain at or below the PNEC for each CoC. The total ChF of annual REE magnet assembly production was 6.91E12 m 3 , with hotspots in watersheds in China and Thailand where REEs are processed and steel metalworking takes place. Metals were the primary CoCs, with cadmium and chromium(VI) comprising 77% of total ChF. Dilution factors ranged from 5E−09 to 9E + 03 of the DC of the waterbody, reflecting the spatial variability in both emissions and DC. An advanced ChF method was demonstrated for HDD REE magnets. Scoping is a key step required to reduce model complexity. The use of regionalized fate factors and standardized hydrological data sets improves the comparability of ChFs across hydrobasins. Additional work to combine data sets into readily available tools is needed to increase usability and standardization of the ChF method and promote wider adoption.

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Advances, Norms, and Perspectives in Product Chemical Footprint Research

Cited by 3 publications

References 28 publications

Technical and technological constraints facing Tanzania leather value chain: a snapshot of intervention measures

Technical and technological constraints facing Tanzania leather value chain: a snapshot of intervention measures

Chemical Footprint as an Indicator of Health Impacts: The Case of Dioxins and Furans in Brazil

Regionalized chemical footprint method to identify aquatic ecotoxicity hotspots of hard disk drive rare‐earth magnets

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