Life cycle assessment of a windshield wiper - A case study

This paper describes a study on the environmental impact of a Bosch windshield wiper. The first part of the project consisted of comparing the windshield wiper with known ecodesign examples, in order to put red flags at apparently the most important environmental impacts of the product's life cycle (including production, use, and disposal). In a second part of the project a full life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on the windshield wiper in order to check the red flag assumptions of the first phase. These proved indeed to be environmentally important. The LCA was based, as much as possible, on on-sire measurements at the Bosch production plant. Finally, the results of the analysis have been used to formulate improvement options for the wiper.