5 - Environmental impacts of the use phase of the clothing life cycle

Abstract

Use phase plays a significant role in the life cycle assessment of textiles and clothing products, as clothing products are usually meant to be used for a longer span. Of course, this does not include disposable items with short lifespan (products belong to symbols of throwaway society such as diapers, napkins, etc.). For reusable products, for most of the categories of clothing products, use phase is found to be the critical one (hotspot) and it is responsible for the maximum impacts arising from the life cycle assessment of a clothing product from its cradle-to-grave stages. Most of the cradle-to-grave assessments for apparel products did convey this message and hence the consideration of use phase to reduce the environmental impacts plays a considerable role in attaining ecological sustainability from the textiles and clothing products. Degree of impacts varies for different products and even for the same product, and the use phase impacts vary depending upon factors such as consumer behaviour, geographical zone in which the product is used and the weather conditions in that zone. This chapter details the use phase impacts in a clothing product's life cycle and its implications along with the case studies reported in the literature on various clothing product categories.