Evaluation of Environmental Impact of Palm-Fiber Based Geotextile Using a Life Cycle Method

Abstract

Currently, the geotextile industry is dominated by petroleum-based products, and the market share of bio-based geotextiles is still very low. With climatic and more generally environmental issues, combined with the scarcity of petroleum resources, the use of bio-based products appears to be an avenue of choice to explore. Through this study, we intend to raise the environmental benefits of a natural geotextile woven from fibers extracted from the leaves of the dwarf palm plant, an abundant renewable resource in Morocco and Mediterranean basin. We used the life cycle assessment analysis from cradle to factory gate following the requirements of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. Our main objective is to provide an environmental profile for this natural geotextile to encourage its use in soil protection and to stimulate therefore the local economy. The LCA analysis results showed that the transportation phase is the main contributor to almost every environmental impact category. We also noticed that no environmental impact was identified for the raw material supply phase which is characterized by a traditional harvest of raw palm leaves from the palm plant that grows spontaneously in eco-friendly environment. A comparison with two examples of petroleum-based geotextiles available in the market shows that palm-fiber-based geotextile presented the lower impacts in all the categories, except for eutrophication and ozone layer depletion potentials, its carbon footprint is relatively low and can save an average of 0.84 Kg CO2 eq. per surface unit (1 m2), nevertheless, its water consumption exceeds that recorded for synthetic geotextiles. Finally, palm-fiber geotextile can compete with the synthetic ones used in soil erosion, it is designed from renewable resource, naturally biodegradable, requires little energy for its production, and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.