Carbon footprint of hospital laundry: a life-cycle assessment

To assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a regional hospital laundry unit, and model ways in which these can be reduced.

A cradle to grave process-based attributional life-cycle assessment.

A large hospital laundry unit supplying hospitals in Southwest England.

All laundry processed through the unit in 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years.

The mean carbon footprint of processing one laundry item, expressed as in terms of the global warming potential over 100 years, as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e).

Average annual laundry unit GHG emissions were 2947 t CO₂e. Average GHG emissions were 0.225 kg CO₂e per item-use and 0.5080 kg CO₂e/kg of laundry. Natural gas use contributed 75.7% of on-site GHG emissions. Boiler electrification using national grid electricity for 2020-2022 would have increased GHG emissions by 9.1%, however by 2030 this would reduce annual emissions by 31.9% based on the national grid decarbonisation trend. Per-item transport-related GHG emissions reduce substantially when heavy goods vehicles are filled at ≥50% payload capacity. Single-use laundry item alternatives cause significantly higher per-use GHG emissions, even if reusable laundry were transported long distances and incinerated at the end of its lifetime.

The laundry unit has a large carbon footprint, however the per-item GHG emissions are modest and significantly lower than using single-use alternatives. Future electrification of boilers and optimal delivery vehicle loading can reduce the GHG emissions per laundry item.