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CIRAIG/marilca-cfs-mps: MarILCA Characterization Factors for Microplastics, Tire Particles and Cellulosic Fibers in Life Cycle Assessment: Regionalized impacts in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems v1.0.0

Open MIND 2026
Nadim Saadi, Carla Hajjar, Louisa Ospital, Joris Quik, Elena Corella-Puertas, Anne Hids, Marion Lebrun, Juliette Louvet, Yibo Tang, Nils Thonemann, Anne‐Marie Boulay

Summary

Scientists have developed a new scientific tool that measures how microplastics, tire dust, and synthetic clothing fibers actually harm ecosystems—like oceans, rivers, and soil—when they're released into the environment. This matters because it helps companies and researchers calculate the real environmental cost of products (from packaging to tires to clothes) throughout their entire life cycle, making it easier to compare which products cause less ecological damage. While this tool focuses on environmental harm rather than direct human health effects, healthier ecosystems generally mean cleaner water, soil, and food chains—all of which indirectly support human health.

Study Type Environmental

First public release of the multimedia MarILCA Characterization Factors (CFs), linking the emission of microplastics (MPs), tire and road wear particles (TRWPs), and cellulosic microfibers to ecosystem quality damage via physical effects on biota (PEOB). The CFs currently rely on the SimpleBox object-oriented (SBoo) model v2026.3.1 (10.5281/zenodo.19388881). This repository contains the CFs ready for implementation in LCA tools and methods, and will be updated if small adjustments are necessary (e.g., more degradation data for a specific polymer, or new version of SBoo). This version is associated with a paper currently under review, and available as a preprint outlining the methodology used: Saadi, Nadim and Hajjar, Carla and Ospital, Louisa and Quik, Joris and Corella-Puertas, Elena and Hids, Anne R. and Lebrun, Marion and Louvet, Juliette and Tang, Yibo and Thonemann, Nils and Boulay, Anne-Marie, MarILCA Characterization Factors for Microplastics, Tire Particles and Cellulosic Fibers in Life Cycle Assessment: Regionalized impacts in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6727270 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6727270

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