Comparative life cycle assessment of PET-bottled versus photovoltaic point-of-use drinking water systems in Türkiye

Abstract Türkiye’s potable water supply is dominated by single-use PET bottled water, supported by a centralised treatment and distribution infrastructure that is vulnerable to disaster- and climate-related disruptions. Photovoltaic-powered point-of-use (PV-POU) systems offer a decentralized alternative, but their life-cycle performance has not been quantified for the Turkish context. This study presents an ISO 14,040/14,044-conformant comparative LCA of the prevailing PET-bottled system and a PV-powered point-of-use purification system, using SimaPro 10.1, ecoinvent 3.8, and ReCiPe 2016 (Hierarchist, midpoint), for a functional unit of 1,000 L of drinking water supplied to a household over one year. The PET pathway yields a global warming potential of 341.0 kg CO₂-eq per functional unit, compared with 22.4 kg CO₂-eq for PV-POU, with reductions exceeding 90% for climate change, fossil resource scarcity and land use, and smaller but consistent reductions across all remaining midpoint categories. PET impacts are driven primarily by transport and bottle-production electricity, while PV-POU impacts centre on the point-of-use purification unit. Sensitivity analysis confirms this ranking is robust to input uncertainty, treatment-technology choice, component lifetimes, and disaster-driven stress, under which PV-POU’s advantage widens further. As the analysis relies on secondary ecoinvent data and proxy processes for the Turkish context, absolute values should be interpreted as indicative rather than definitive; nonetheless, the results support PV-POU as a resilient, lower-impact alternative for rural potable water provision in Türkiye.