BACKGROUND: The forest products industry produces valuable industrial chemicals, wood products, and consumer goods, but is also responsible for the emission of significant quantities of hazardous air pollutants. Although many air pollution control options are available, little is known about the overall environmental impacts of implementing each option. Therefore, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to compare energy and raw material inputs, air emissions, and environmental impacts associated with construction and operation of two air pollution control systems: regenerative thermal oxidation (RTO) with wet scrubbing and photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) with biofiltration. RESULTS: LCA results indicated that environmental impacts to resource depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, and acidification were 20% higher for the use of a RTO-scrubber than for the PCO-biofilter. In addition, at least 25% of the RTO impacts were due to infrastructure requirements. However, the PCO-biofilter system was responsible for more environmental impact in categories of global warming and human toxicity, because of the packing materials required and the electricity use for the PCO reactor. CONCLUSIONS: The PCO-biofilter system could be a promising, environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional RTO devices, provided that this system is modified to decrease resource and energy demands. (C) 2008 Society of Chemical Industry