Improving financial and environmental sustainability in concentrated latex manufacture

In the natural rubber industry, concentrated latex (CL) holds a prominent position due to its use in manufacturing dipped rubber products (e.g., gloves, condoms, etc.). With no previous studies on the process efficiency at commercial level of CL manufacture, this study aimed at adopting process analyses tools in three CL factories (factory A, B and C) in Sri Lanka in view of improving CL manufacture process in financial and environmental terms. This approach possessed three steps: 1) quantification of resource use, financial losses and global warming potential using material flow analysis (MFA), material flow cost accounting (MFCA) and environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), 2) identification of key issues and proposing improvement options with help of Pareto and what if analyses, field interviews and literature, and 3) determination of potential improvement and feasibility through re-performing MFA, MFCA and ELCA, and discounted cash flow analysis, greenhouse gas payback time and novel loss reduction efficiency index. On average, the present level of financial loss and global warming potential per 1 MT of rubber input were found to be LKR 9608 and 112.8 kg CO2e, respectively. Installation of an advanced trap tank was proposed to factory A (i.e., option-1) whilst extending sedimentation time (i.e., option-2) and Installing inverters and solar panels (i.e., option-3) were recommended to all factories as improvement options. Combined scenario entailing options 2 and 3 for all factories, was found to be the most applicable in terms of financial returns and environmental benefits. •Monetary losses and environmental impact of Concentrated Latex manufacture quantified.•Factors affecting monetary losses and environmental impact identified.•Options with remarkable impacts proposed to improve the overall efficiency.•Novel approach developed to assess the efficiency of multi-factor improvement options.