Background This product-specific plant-specific declaration was created by collecting production data from the Isolatek team for product shipped from Warren, IN. Secondary data sources include those available in the ecoinvent v3.10 and US-EI 2.2 databases.

Allocation The PCR prescribes where and how allocation occurs. Since only facility-level data were available, allocation among the facility's other co-products was necessary to determine the energy consumption associated with the product. Allocation of energy was done on a mass basis for all products. Allocation of transportation was based on weight, since volume is not assumed to be limiting factor. For recycled content and disposal at end of life, system boundaries were drawn consistent with the cut-off allocation approach. Recycled newspaper, which is used as the cellulose material, is assumed to enter the system burden-free in that burden associated with the production of virgin cellulose is not allocated to the cellulose material life cycle. Likewise, the system boundary was drawn to include landfilling of the cellulose material at end-of-life (following the polluter pays principle) but exclude any credits from material or energy recovery.

Cut-off criteria for the inclusion of mass and energy flows are 1% of renewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% nonrenewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% of the total mass input of that unit process, and 1% of environmental impacts. The total of neglected input flows per module does not exceed 5% of energy usage, mass, and environmental impacts. The only exceptions to these criteria are substances with hazardous and toxic properties, which must be listed even when the given process unit is under the cut-off criterion of 1% of the total mass. No known flows are deliberately excluded from this declaration, and no substances required to be reported as hazardous are associated with the production of this product including upstream raw material supply and raw material manufacturing. Therefore, these criteria have been met. Biogenic carbon is included in reported results.

Quality Temporal and technological representativeness are considered to be high. Geographical representativeness is considered to be high. All relevant process steps for the product system were considered and modeled. The process chain is considered sufficiently complete with regards to the goal and scope of this study. The product system was checked for mass balance and completeness of the inventory. Capital goods were excluded since they are assumed not to significantly affect the conclusions of the LCA. Otherwise, no data were knowingly omitted. For more information on data quality, see the LCA background report.

LCIA impact factors required by the PCR are global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, smog, and fossil fuel depletion; “These six impact categories are globally deemed mature enough to be included in Type III environmental declarations. Other categories are being developed and defined and LCA should continue making advances in their development. However, the EPD users shall not use additional measures for comparative purposes.”

Flow diagram