On the implementation of toxicological assessment at SCA Personal Care

Abstract

In this master thesis the possibility and relevance of implementation of toxicological assessment are examined. At SCA Personal Care life cycle assessment (LCA) is used for environmental assessment of new design in the product development process. Now it will be investigated if it would be beneficial to implement toxicological assessment as an integrated part in the LCA practice. Different life cycle assessment methods for toxicological assessment are studied to find a method suitable for the purpose. Two different methods, EDIP and a risk phrase method based on the EDIP methodology, are applied to data sets from SCA’s LCA data base. This toxicological assessment aims at showing how a toxicological assessment is carried out and highlighting procedural difficulties with it. According to the relevance of implementation, a lot of advantages are found. It is though evident that the toxicity assessment has to be carried out easily and cost-effectively to be beneficial for the company. The administration of the toxicity assessment has to be simple. Otherwise it will be too expensive to have it as an integrated part in the LCA practice. The method regarded most appropriate to use at SCA Personal Care is the EDIP method. It is a simple and well documented method which is easy to use.