Daddi Tiberio, Ahmad Shamraiz, Albano Francesca
Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Institute of Management, Piazza Martiri Della Libertà 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy.
Ergo S.R.L., Via Oberdan 11, 56127, Pisa, PI, Italy.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2024 Dec 16. doi: 10.1007/s11356-024-35625-4.
Because of various negative impacts of chromium intensive manufacturing, the leather-based fashion industry is under pressure to use environmentally friendly tanning technologies. However, there is a lack of scientific research that evaluates the environmental impacts of novel tanning processes. Thus, this study is aimed to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of traditional chromium-based process and a novel metal-free tanning technology. The novel metal-free technology is based on synthetic tannins, instead of metal or vegetable-based tannins. To achieve the objectives, a detailed life cycle assessment was done for 1 m of finished leather. The primary data were gathered from two different leather manufacturing plants located in the same Italian municipality and the background data were extracted from the Ecoinvent database. SimaPro 9.4 was used as the modeling software tool, and the impacts were evaluated for midpoint impact categories. For the novel metal-free tanning technology, the results revealed a significant reduction in various impact categories, such as particulate matter impacts were reduced by 25%, human toxicity (non-carcinogenic) by 31%, human toxicity (carcinogenic) by 56%, and acidification by 29%. Overall, based on single point performance score, the novel metal-free tanning system showed 18.4% less environmental impacts than the chrome-based tanning. For the most relevant impact categories, the novel metal-free tanning system again showed significantly less impact. The cattle breeding phase contributed most to various relevant impact categories, including acidification, particulate matter, and terrestrial eutrophication. Two alternative scenarios were also developed and evaluated to show how the solar energy may help further reduce the environmental impacts. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to see the influence of uncertainty linked with the choice of thermal energy source. Overall, the study highlighted how the green tanning technologies and green energy initiatives could help decarbonize and improve the environmental performance of leather manufacturing industry.
由于铬密集型制造的各种负面影响，皮革时尚产业面临着采用环保鞣制技术的压力。然而，缺乏评估新型鞣制工艺环境影响的科学研究。因此，本研究旨在量化和比较传统铬基工艺和新型无金属鞣制技术的环境影响。新型无金属技术基于合成单宁，而非金属或植物基单宁。为实现这些目标，对1平方米成品皮革进行了详细的生命周期评估。主要数据来自位于意大利同一市镇的两家不同皮革制造厂，背景数据从Ecoinvent数据库中提取。使用SimaPro 9.4作为建模软件工具，并针对中点影响类别评估影响。对于新型无金属鞣制技术，结果显示在各种影响类别中均有显著降低，例如颗粒物影响降低了25%，人类毒性（非致癌）降低了31%，人类毒性（致癌）降低了56%，酸化降低了29%。总体而言，基于单点性能得分，新型无金属鞣制系统的环境影响比铬基鞣制低18.4%。对于最相关的影响类别，新型无金属鞣制系统再次显示出显著更低的影响。养牛阶段对各种相关影响类别贡献最大，包括酸化、颗粒物和陆地富营养化。还开发并评估了两种替代方案，以展示太阳能如何有助于进一步降低环境影响。还进行了敏感性分析，以查看与热能来源选择相关的不确定性的影响。总体而言，该研究强调了绿色鞣制技术和绿色能源倡议如何有助于皮革制造业脱碳并改善其环境绩效。
