TY - JOUR
T1 - Better than bottled water?—Energy and climate change impacts of on-the-go drinking water stations
AU - Makov, Tamar
AU - Meylan, Grégoire
AU - Powell, Jon T.
AU - Shepon, Alon
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1122492 . The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the NSF or the U.S. Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - Growing consumption of single-use bottled water has received criticism due to potentially adverse environmental outcomes. Networks of public-sphere water delivery stations have been proposed as a sustainable alternative for water consumption on-the-go, yet the life-cycle impacts of such stations are poorly understood. Here we evaluate the potential cumulative energy demand and climate change impacts of water delivered from a filtered water refill station under various consumption scenarios and provide a comparison to published results for bottled water. Using a hybrid life-cycle analysis framework employing physical and economic data, we model the water station's performance in four locations: Tel-Aviv, Israel; Miami Beach, Florida, USA; London, UK; and Shanghai, China. We find that the climate change impact of the station is two to six times lower than those of bottled water and that use phase electricity is the most influential factor in determining the station's environmental impact. We provide additional observations related to scaling up such a system and recommendations to realize further gains in eco-efficiency.
AB - Growing consumption of single-use bottled water has received criticism due to potentially adverse environmental outcomes. Networks of public-sphere water delivery stations have been proposed as a sustainable alternative for water consumption on-the-go, yet the life-cycle impacts of such stations are poorly understood. Here we evaluate the potential cumulative energy demand and climate change impacts of water delivered from a filtered water refill station under various consumption scenarios and provide a comparison to published results for bottled water. Using a hybrid life-cycle analysis framework employing physical and economic data, we model the water station's performance in four locations: Tel-Aviv, Israel; Miami Beach, Florida, USA; London, UK; and Shanghai, China. We find that the climate change impact of the station is two to six times lower than those of bottled water and that use phase electricity is the most influential factor in determining the station's environmental impact. We provide additional observations related to scaling up such a system and recommendations to realize further gains in eco-efficiency.
KW - Bottled water
KW - Climate change
KW - Decentralized water systems
KW - LCA
KW - Water fountain
KW - Water station
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060488413&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.11.010
DO - 10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.11.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85060488413
SN - 0921-3449
VL - 143
SP - 320
EP - 328
JO - Resources, Conservation and Recycling
JF - Resources, Conservation and Recycling
ER -