Life-cycle environmental impact assessment and plastic pollution prevention measures of wet wipes

Abstract

Wet wipes have become one of the daily necessities for consumers. The spunlace non-woven fabric, whose main raw materials are petroleum-based fibers (mainly polyester fibers) and bio-based fibers (mainly viscose fibers), is the predominant component of wet wipes. The use of wet wipes triggers the increasing plastic consumption and environmental pollution. In the current study, the materials composition of China's wet wipes and final disposal methods were performed. The basic data of materials of wet wipes was obtained through field research. The study also evaluated and compared the life cycle environmental impacts of bio-based and petroleum-based wet wipes. Results showed that in China, the amount of plastic used in wet wipes reached 0.41 million tons in 2019. As for the comparison between distinct types of wet wipes, the comprehensive environmental impacts of bio-based wet wipes throughout the life cycle is 38% lower than that of petroleum-based wet wipes. The bio-based wet wipes outperform the petroleum-based ones in the lower resource consumption and toxicity risk, albeit it may induce water pollution. In the direct leakage scenario, bio-based wet wipes can avoid various risk of microplastic fibers disintegrated by polyester fibers. The main findings of this paper support the policy suggestions that bio-based wet wipes are proper alternatives for petroleum-based wet wipes, and it is essential to change consumers’ discarding behaviours to attenuate the leakage risk of wet wipes.