Environmental Impact Assessment of a Pair of Jeans: A Tunisian Case Study
摘要
It is widely recognized that the denim industry, including jeans production, generates significant environmental impacts, and therefore requires a detailed assessment of its production practices. In this context, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to evaluate the environmental performance of women’s jeans manufactured in Tunisia, applying a gate-to-gate approach. To this end, data were collected from a jeans manufacturing plant in Tunisia where the main steps of production were covered, including garment manufacture, industrial washing, and finishing. The findings revealed that the total impacts for each selected impact category were 3.8 kg CO2 eq for global warming potential (GWP), 7.5×10-3 kg SO2 eq for terrestrial acidification (TA), 1.6×10-3 kg P eq for freshwater eutrophication (FE), and 56×10-3 m3 for water consumption (WC). Results highlighted key environmental issues, including electricity and heat consumption, high water use during processing, along with metal components used in trimmings. Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of LCA as a tool for identifying environmental hot spots with the aim of guiding the development of strategies and initiatives, based on existing literature, to mitigate these impacts.