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A Study on Consumption Characteristics of Single-use Wet Wipes and Life Cycle Assessment
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Researchers conducted a life cycle assessment of single-use wet wipes in South Korea across 2019–2022, finding that pandemic-driven consumption spikes significantly increased the environmental burden of these largely plastic-fiber products across energy use, water consumption, and waste generation categories.
This study was conducted to assess the potential environmental impacts of single-use wet wipes in South Korea. Over the period of 2019 and 2022, about 320,000 tons of the wipes were consumed in the country after and during the COVID-19 pandemic due to concerns over bacteria and virus infection by hands. The material composition of single-use wet wipes are made of largely a mixture of polyester and rayon. More than 90% of the restaurants and cafeterias use single-use wet wipes, resulting in the disposal of household waste. This life cycle assessment (LCA) results showed that most of environmental impacts of single-use wet wipes were attributed to the production process in the life cycle stage. The global warming impact of 1 ton of the wet wipes resulted in 5.13 ton CO2 eq for the entire life cycle, of which were mostly generated from the polyester and viscose rayon fibers manufacturing in the product stage (94%), followed by the waste treatment stage (5%). Further study is warranted to examine the potential environmental impacts from wet wipes made of natural pulp by comparing with the polyester-rayon wipes using LCA. This study results can be used for developing the reduction of single-use plastic policies and proper management strategies to minimize the impacts associated with wet wipes life cycle.
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