Carbon footprint of hospital laundry: a life-cycle assessment

Abstract

Objectives To assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a regional hospital laundry unit, and model ways in which these can be reduced.Design A cradle to grave process-based attributional life-cycle assessment.Setting A large hospital laundry unit supplying hospitals in Southwest England.Population All laundry processed through the unit in 2020–21 and 2021–22 financial years.Primary outcome measure The mean carbon footprint of processing one laundry item, expressed as in terms of the global warming potential over 100 years, as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).Results Average annual laundry unit GHG emissions were 2947 t CO2e. Average GHG emissions were 0.225 kg CO2e per item-use and 0.5080 kg CO2e/kg of laundry. Natural gas use contributed 75.7% of on-site GHG emissions. Boiler electrification using national grid electricity for 2020–2022 would have increased GHG emissions by 9.1%, however by 2030 this would reduce annual emissions by 31.9% based on the national grid decarbonisation trend. Per-item transport-related GHG emissions reduce substantially when heavy goods vehicles are filled at ≥50% payload capacity. Single-use laundry item alternatives cause significantly higher per-use GHG emissions, even if reusable laundry were transported long distances and incinerated at the end of its lifetime.Conclusions The laundry unit has a large carbon footprint, however the per-item GHG emissions are modest and significantly lower than using single-use alternatives. Future electrification of boilers and optimal delivery vehicle loading can reduce the GHG emissions per laundry item.