Environmental Profile Assessment of a Plastic Framed Tambourine Musical Instrument – A Lifecycle Approach
2013; Volume: 3; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-2634
Autores Tópico(s)Sustainable Building Design and Assessment
ResumoTambourine is produced and used for gospel music and folk dances all over the world. About 1.2 million of tambourines are purchased annually. Majority have about 2years lifespan before its disposal in the landfill. This short lifecycle presents great potentials for environmental pollution and resource depletion. With the increasing desire for awareness of ecological footprints of our commonly used products, it becomes necessary to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of tambourine. Doing so would enable users to make informed choices and manufacturers to identify hotspots requiring improvements. This research paper is a report resulting from the use of lifecycle assessment (LCA) process for evaluating the environmental profile of a plastic tambourine. The process, according to ISO 14040-44 standards involved goals and scope definition, lifecycle inventory, lifecycle impact analysis, and interpretation. The assessment was implemented with the aid of SimaPro software version 7.3.3. Results of the analyses revealed that climate change and ozone depletion are the significant potential environmental impacts. Each plastic tambourine has 664.065KgCO2-eq in Global Warming Potential and 0.227kgCFC-11-eq as its Ozone Depletion Potential. Further examination also showed that most of the impacts are from tambourine distribution and plastic material use. As there was no report found on LCA of tambourine, this study provides insights on potential environmental impacts of tambourine and where urgent attention is needed.
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