Environmental Comparison of End-of-Life Options for Cotton T-Shirts
![Cotton dried plant](https://quantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/dry-blossom-cotton-close-up.jpg)
Objective
- Coop wants to understand the environmental impacts and benefits of different end-of-life options of a cotton t-shirt.
- The impacts should be compared to the overall lifecycle impact of producing a t-shirt.
- The ultimate goal is to identify efficient ways to close the loop in the apparel sector
![Coop](https://quantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/coop-1024x466.jpg)
Quantis Solution
Quantis used Swiss primary data from the project collaboration partners TEXAID, Soex and Telltex to compare four different end-oflife options for a t-shirt:
![COOP quantis solution](https://quantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/coop-quantis-solution-300x183.png)
Results
- Compared to the overall impact of the lifecycle of a t-shirt, the production and use phases have the most significant environmental impact. The end-of-life impacts (see graph on the top, e.g. Collection & Transports and Sorting & Recycling for the re-wear option) are negligible.
- The biggest positive impact of the different endof-life options are re-wear (due to the decreased production of new products) followed by down-cycling to wipers or insulation
Key Findings
- The positive effects of substitution of materials depend on the environmental impact of the substituted virgin materials. End-of-life measures can replace high-quality products and resources.
- Incineration and composting of cotton t-shirts are the end-of-life options with the heaviest environmental burden and should be avoided.
- Textiles transport and end-of-life processing, such as fiber recycling, wipers cutting and clothes cleaning have a low contribution to the entire lifecycle of the t-shirt (below 2% of CO2e emissions)
Client’s Actions
- Metrics-based proof points for selecting and justifying different end-of-life options
- Using results for client communications
Environmental Comparison of End-of-Life Options for Cotton T-Shirts
![COOP steps](https://quantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/coop-steps--959x1024.png)
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