Authors
Bortoloto Damasceno Barcelos, Silvia Mara; Oiko, Olívia
Abstract
The growing global environmental concern has intensified and the environmental implications of silk yarn production practices should not be disregarded. A relevant part of environmental assessment studies focuses on the final product, however, upstream and downstream processes also contribute to the total impacts. Therefore, the aim of this study is to present an introductory analysis for conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the silk yarn production system in Brazil (one of the world’s largest producers of silk cocoons). For this, the principles of LCA were applied, following the standards of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) (ISO 14040 and 14044), and the software tool Umberto was used for product system modeling. The product system comprises from the receipt of the silk cocoon to the sale of the silk yarn in skeins. This introductory analysis allows academics and professionals to have a systemic view of the yarn production process, as well as identifies the main difficulties and limitations for conducting an LCA study of such a system under Brazilian conditions. However, it also provides a qualitative inventory for the yarn production process, with the necessary inputs and products. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies on silk yarn production under Brazilian conditions in the literature until the time this research was conducted.