Emission of chemicals from consumer goods - From product flow data to organic substance emissions to the environment – the case of PVC flooring

Paper in proceeding, 2011

This case study on PVC flooring investigates the possibilities and barriers to extract and combine Swedish product flow data from Statistics Sweden, in order to derive data detailed enough to populate a developed emission model and execute calculations on total emissions from all PVC flooring in Sweden during one year. A comparison is made, between calculated emissions using either product flow data from Statistics Sweden or from other domestic floor branch sources. At Statistics Sweden, existing databases, published statistics and available methods were used for identifying and illustrating the possible methods and barriers for extraction and combination of product flow data. For calculations of emissions a combined material flow and diffusive mass transfer model was developed and used. This case study shows that the data categories and the methods needed for estimating the accumulated product area exist at Statistics Sweden, in principle, but the data is sometimes too aggregated or too protected to make the calculations on a detailed product category level, as in this case for PVC flooring. Using product flow data from the least aggregated level of the Combined Nomenclature, for PVC flooring, generates calculated emissions three times higher than the emissions calculated from the more specific product flow data from The Swedish Flooring Trade Association. The PVC flooring case study boils down to the facing of a trade off when it comes to national emission assessment of several product categories; using data from Statistics Sweden generates emissions within a reasonable period of time, but with aggregated and in this case, too high values – using branch product flow data generates more accurate emission values but is not a plausible option due to the steep increase in resource demands.