These are the Days of our Products’ Lives

Ever wondered if it’s environmentally better to use an electric hand dryer or paper towels?  Paper or plastic grocery bags?  Cloth or disposable diapers?

What can help you make these thorny decisions is a life-cycle assessment of such products.  Nearly every product passes through several phases in its life cycle, each of which has some environmental impact. Add them all up and you’ll have a pretty good idea of which product to reach for.

First, you need materials to make a product, and that typically involves resource extraction, unless recycled materials are used. Then there’s the manufacturing process, which consumes energy and materials and may use chemicals, which could in turn be discarded into the environment.

Energy and materials are also used in the packaging, which is often a petroleum-based plastic product.  Transportation from factory to store consumes further energy.

The stage consumers are most familiar with is the product’s use when we own it.  For example, our cars run on fossil fuels and emit pollutants and greenhouse gases while we’re driving them.

Eventually, the product wears out or we no longer need it.  Often, we just throw it out, and it ends up in a landfill, contributing to further greenhouse gases.  Even if the product is recycled, it still requires transportation and energy.

So how do we make responsible choices when such a complex chain of events is involved?  Even if you’re not aware of a product’s entire life cycle, you can examine some obvious characteristics.  For example, does one product offer less plastic packaging or more recycled content than another?  How much energy will it use and emissions will it produce while you own it?  Can it be recycled at the end of its life? (Note: Recycling, in itself, shouldn’t be an excuse to consume; recyclable plastic bottles, for example, are a poor way of getting drinking water.)

So, back to the questions at the beginning of this discussion: hand dryer versus paper towels, paper versus plastic, cloth versus disposable diapers.  Sorry, but there are no easy answers.  Each has its pros and cons, and much can depend on such things as how far you live from where the product is made and where your electricity comes from.  For instance, if your electricity comes from burning coal, it may be better to use paper towels than an electric hand dryer.

Our behaviour can help, too.  We can take reusable cloth bags to the grocery store instead of getting new, disposable bags every time we shop.  If we have a front-loading ENERGY STAR® washing machine and use a clothes line as a dryer, that can help tip the choice towards cloth over disposable diapers.  Remember, consciousness is the key.