Comparative Environmental Impact Evaluation of Disposable Surgical and Reusable Cloth Face Masks

Abstract

Malaysia, wearing face mask during Covid-19 outbreak were mandatory. This action has caused significant surge in face mask production which deem to affect environment and human health. This paper evaluates and compared the environmental impacts, in a life cycle assessments perspective between disposable surgical face mask and reusable cloth face mask using cradle-to-grave approaches according to ISO 14040. The environmental impacts were assessed based on nine midpoint impact categories which are ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, acidification, eutrophication, smog formation, human health cancer and non-cancer, human health particulates and ecotoxicity. The functional unit for both types of face masks is a person wearing face mask as protection every day for one year (365 masks for disposable surgical face mask and 3 masks for reusable cloth face mask). The LCA tool used was OpenLCA software with Ecoinvent consequential 3.7.1 version database and TRACI 2.1 for impact method assessment. The study showed that reusable cloth face mask had the lowest impact compared to disposable surgical face mask across the assessed midpoint impact categories. This study suggested incineration as the best disposal method for the End-of-Life (EoL) of both face masks. Sensitive analysis also performed by manipulating the amount of face mask used per individual and it was found that the amount of mask used had significant effects to the environmental performance.