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Including Impacts of Microplastics and Cellulosic Microfibers in Marine Water and Sediments in Life Cycle Assessment
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This repository provides updated life cycle assessment (LCA) characterisation factors for the physical effects of microplastics — including both synthetic and cellulosic microfibres — on marine biota in water and sediment, enabling researchers and companies to more accurately quantify the environmental impact of plastic-containing products across their full lifecycle. Including cellulosic fibres from materials like rayon and viscose fills an important gap, since these semi-synthetic textiles are major sources of waterway microfibre pollution.
This repository contains the updated MarILCA characterization factors (CFs) for the physical effects of microplastics (MPs) on marine biota, including impacts in both the water column and sediment compartments. This update (version 2): Provides updated (cotton, viscose, and linen) and additional CFs for cellulosic materials (lyocell, modal, and rayon) based on a new published article in sheets "1.3 Marine_micro_fiber" and "2.3 Freshwater_micro_fiber" Fixes a minor mistake in the default CFs for viscose and cotton that were inverted in the sheets "1.1 Marine_micro_default" and "2.1 Freshwater_micro_default". All CFs are provided in the file "SI_All_CFs.xlsx". Other files (e.g. case study results) were not updated, and therefore can be found in the previous version of this repository, or in the supplementary informations of the associated publications. Updates the conversion to ReCiPe units. CFs in units compatible with ReCiPe and GLAM can be found in sheet "3.1 ReCiPe and GLAM". Please refer to and cite the following articles: For synthetic materials: Saadi, N., Lavoie, J., Fantke, P., Redondo-Hasselerharm, P., & Boulay, A.-M. (2025). Including impacts of microplastics in marine water and sediments in life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 520, 146037. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146037 For cellulosic materials: Saadi, N., & Boulay, A.-M. (2026). Microfibers in Life Cycle Assessment: Comparing the Physical Effects of Cellulosic and Synthetic Fibers via Characterization Factors Development. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, vjag007, https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjag007 Ongoing work of the MarILCA group aims at finalizing these CFs while including impacts in all ecosystems (marine, freshwater, and terrestrial), for all particles (synthetic, cellulosic and TRWPs) of all shapes and sizes.
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