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LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF PLASTIC CUPS: A

REVIEW

Sunny Jariwala1, Ankita Parmar

2

ME, Environmental Engg., Sarvajanik College of Engg. & Tech., Surat, Gujarat, India1

Lecturer Environmental Engg., Sarvajanik College of Engg. & Tech., Surat, Gujarat, India2

Abstract: Now a day there are concerns with environmental issues and are increasing

considerably in plastic. To avoid or at least reduce the environmental impacts, plastic

production should be involved assessing of the environmental impact of surrounding

environment. This work performs a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of plastic

cups. It presents the four basic stages of conducting an LCA: goal and scope definition,

inventory analysis, impact assessment and inventory analysis. The major stage is an LCA

study are raw material acquisition, material manufacture, and production,

use/reuse/maintains and waste management. The system boundaries, assumption and

conventions to address in each stage are present. This document is designed to be an

educational tool for someone who wants to learn the basic of LCA, or how to manage

someone conducting an LCA.

Keywords: Green house gas, Life cycle assessment, Municipal solid waste, polycarbonate

(PC)

INTRODUCTION

As environmental awareness increases, industries and businesses are assessing other

activities affect the environment. Many businesses have responded to this awareness by

providing “greener” products and using “greener” processes. The environmental

performance of products and processes has become a key issue, which is why some

companies are investigating ways to minimize their effects on the environment. Many

companies have found it advantage us to explore ways of moving beyond compliance

using pollution prevention strategies and environmental management systems to

improve their environmental performance. One such tool is LCA. This concept

considers the entire life cycle of a product. Now a day, Municipal Solid Waste

(MSW) generation rates are increasing rapidly in Asian countries as a result

of accelerated urban population growth, unplanned urbanization and

increasing economic activities and resources consumption

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Fig 1: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Product

LCA [U.S. EPA 2010]

Life cycle assessment is a “cradle-to-grave” approach for assessing industrial systems.

“Cradle-to-grave” begins with the gathering of raw materials from the earth to create the

product and end sat the point when all materials are return end to the earth. LCA evaluates all

stages of a product’s life from the perspective that they are interdependent, meaning that one

operation leads to the next. LCA enables the estimation of the cumulative environmental

impacts resulting from all stages in the product life cycle, often including impacts not

considered in more traditional analyses (e.g. raw material extraction, material transportation,

ultimate product disposal, etc. ). The term “life cycle” refers to the major activities in the

course of the product’s life-span from its manufacture, use, and maintenance, to its final

disposal, including the raw material an acquisition required manufacturing the product.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a technique for assessing the potential environmental

aspects and potential aspects associated with a product (or service), by:

Compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs,

Evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and

outputs,

Interpreting the results of the inventory and impact phases in relation to the objectives

of the study.

IMPORTANCE OF LCA

A great deal of waste is generated through human activities – approximately 40 tons/year per

person in the United States. This represents lost resources as well as results in environmental

degradation. The most important goal of LCA, according to a survey of organizations

actively involved in LCA, is to minimize the magnitude of pollution [3].

Provides a standard scientifically based method to evaluate environmental burdens

associated with a product or process over its life cycle;

Identifies and quantifies energy and materials used and wastes released to the

environment;

Assesses the impact of those energy and materials uses and releases on the

environment; and

Evaluates opportunities to effect environmental improvements.

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LCA METHODOLOGY

LCA studies the environmental aspects and potential impacts (damages) along the continuum

of a product’s life (i.e. cradle-to-grave) from raw material acquisition through production,

use and disposal. The general categories of environmental impacts needing consideration

include resource use, human health, and ecological consequences” (ISO, 1998).

According to ISO 14040 (1997), a full environmental LCA includes 4 phases:

Goal and scope definition (ISO 14041, 1998);

Inventory analysis (ISO 14041, 1998);

Impact assessment (ISO 14042, 2000);

Interpretation (ISO 14043, 2000).

Life Cycle Assessment Plastic cups

Plastic bags were first introduced in 1977 and now account for four out of every five bags

handed out at grocery stores. A Life cycle analysis involves making detailed measurements

during the manufacturing of the product, from the mining of the raw materials used in its

production and distribution, its use, possible re-use or recycling, and its eventual disposal.

Most plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which is made from petroleum, a non-

renewable resource. Life cycle analysis enables a manufacturer to quantify how much energy

and raw materials are used, and how much solid waste, liquid waste and gaseous waste is

generated at each stage of the product's life. In order to outline a well-founded waste

management policy for the use of drinking cups at events, OVAM, the Public Waste Agency

for the Flemish Region in Belgium, commissioned VITO, the Flemish Institute for

Technological Research, to study the current environmental impacts and the costs related to

existing systems for drinking cups on small-scale indoor and large-scale outdoor events in

Flanders, Belgium.

The study compares re-usable polycarbonate (PC) cups with one-way polypropylene (PP),

polyethylene (PE)-coated cardboard, and Ingeo (PLA) cups. The basis for the comparison is

defined as the recipients needed for serving 100 liter beer or soft drinks at a small-scale

indoor event (2000-5000 visitors) or a large-scale outdoor event (>30,000 visitors). This

definition includes the production of the cups, the consumption phase (at the event) and the

processing of the waste. The four cup systems were compared in four basic scenarios, along

with a sensitivity analysis to examine the trip rate in the case of reusable PC cups, as well as

the PLA Future scenario. (2008)

Fig 2: Results of Comparing Cup Use at a large event

Fig 3: Results of Comparing Cup Use at a Small event

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Goal and scope definition

The goal and scope definition is the first step of an LCA. In this study OVAM wishes to gain

insight in the current environmental impact and the costs related to existing systems for

drinking cups on events in order to outline a well-founded policy with regard to this subject.

A life cycle assessment analyses the environmental impacts of a product. However the results

of an LCA are not directly useful for the government or the most important target group of

this project: the organizers of events. Therefore an economical analysis is done. In a first

phase a comparative LCA to compare the environmental profiles of 4 existing product

systems, more specifically the re-usable PC cup, the one-way PP cup, the one-way

PE/cardboard cup and the one-way compostable PLA cup, all used on two types of events

(different scales, indoor versus outdoor).

Scope of LCA

The following paragraphs describe the aspects that are related to the scope of the LCA-study.

For the eco-efficiency analysis no ISO standards exist. The environmental aspect, however,

will be based on the LCA and will therefore be well documented and described, as prescribed

by ISO.

Function and functional unit:- The functional unit for this study is defined as: “the

recipients needed for serving 100 liter beer or soft drinks on a small-scale indoor

(2000-5000 visitors) and a large-scale outdoor event (>30 000 visitors)”. This

definition includes the production of the cups, the consumption phase (on the event)

and the processing of the waste. In the remainder of this report, small-scale events

automatically imply indoor and large-scale events automatically imply outdoor events.

The product systems to be studied:- 4 alternative types of cups for use on events will

be examined:

re-usable cup in polycarbonate (PC);

one-way cup in polypropylene (PP);

one-way cup in PE-coated cardboard;

one-way cup in polylactide (PLA).

System boundaries: - Ideally, all life cycle stages, from the extraction of raw

materials to the final waste treatment should be taken into consideration. In practice

however, there is often not sufficient time, data or resources to conduct such a

comprehensive study. Decisions have to be made regarding which life cycle stages,

processes or releases to the environment can be omitted without compromising the

results of the study.

Allocation procedures: - Allocation procedures are needed when dealing with

systems involving multiple products. The materials and energy flows as well as

associated environmental releases shall be allocated to the different products

according to clearly stated procedures, which shall be documented and justified. For

processes where allocation is necessary (multiple input or output processes), the

allocation procedure described by ISO 14041 will be followed (to be applied for

incineration, composting, etc.).

Assumptions and limitations: - All assumptions made during the course of the project

and the limitations of the study are commented on in the report and annexes. The

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results of the LCA are interpreted in agreement with the goal and scope and therefore

with the ISO 14041 and 14043 guidelines.

Inventory analysis

In the inventory phase all data needed to analyze the environmental impacts associated to the

4 types of cups are gathered. In summary this means that all the input flows (material,

energy,) and all the output flows (emissions waste,) are described and quantified. The data

inventory process used the following procedure:

Inquiry (based on specific questionnaires) of the relevant actors (stakeholders) being

producers of cups, suppliers of cups in Flanders, distribution organizations, event

organizers, waste collection and waste treatment organizations;

Simultaneously literature sources that discuss similar issues are consulted;

If available, specific data supplied by the different stakeholders and relevant for

Flanders (and Belgium) are used;

Otherwise data from literature are used (more general);

For aspects where no specific or literature data are found an assumption is made,

based on well-founded arguments.

The most important difference that exists between reusable PC-cups and the one way

alternatives is the fact that the PC-cups can be reused several times. This implies that per

functional unit less cups and possibly less new material is needed for serving beer and soft

drinks in reusable PC-cups compared to the one-way cups. On the other hand collecting and

washing of the PC-cups is needed.

In this study the average basic scenario has the following specifications:

Small-scale events: 45 trips per cup.

For the functional unit this relates to an average loss of 5.5% cups that have to be replaced by

new cups.

Large-scale events: 20 trips per cup

This relates to an average loss of 12.5%.

Impact assessment and interpretation

Usually, the inventory process generates a long list of data, which may be difficult to

interpret, especially with regard to the comparison of products, processes or systems. The

impact assessment is a tool to relate the large number of inventory values to a smaller number

of environmental themes (damage categories) so that the outcome of the assessment is more

conveniently. This chapter describes the approach, the methodology and the results of the

impact analysis of the different cup systems that have been analyzed. The impact analysis is

performed according to the ISO 14042 (impact analysis) and ISO 14043 standard

(interpretation).

When comparing the environmental profiles of the different cup systems with each other, we

use the following rules of thumb for defining a significant difference:

20% for the well-defined impact categories depletion of minerals, depletion of fossil

fuels, climate change, and ozone layer depletion;

30% for the impact categories where the methodology is less well-founded or

incomplete, being acidification/eutrophication, ecotoxicity, carcinogenic, resp.

organic and inorganic.

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Environmental profile of the reusable PC-cup

As defined in the functional unit, we make a distinction between the use of the cups on small

and large events and we will discuss the respective environmental profiles separately.

Small scale events

Figure 2 present the relative contribution of the different life cycle stages of the reusable

PC-cups, used at small scale events, to the environmental impact categories that are taken

into consideration in this study. In order to get a better view of the relative contribution of

the different life cycle stages to the environmental profile, the total environmental impact

for each category is set at 100%. The total environmental impact for a specific impact

category is a summation of all the environmental burdens minus all the benefits

Large scale events

Figure 3 shows the relative contribution of the different life cycle stages of the reusable

PC-cups, used at large scale events, to the environmental impact categories that are taken

into consideration in this study. The life cycle of the reusable PC-cups at large events

differs from the small events for the following aspects:

Lower trip rate which implies the production, printing and packing of more new

cups.

Transportation of the PC-cups from the distributor to the event site (and the return

transport) takes place with a 16-tonne truck instead of a 3.5 tone delivery van. The

distance between distribution centre and event site is smaller.

Precleaning of the cups before the event is done manually, but with soap, which is

not the case for small events.

Cleaning of the cups after the event takes place at a different location, not at the

event site, and is done with a machine. This implies also an extra transportation

step from the event site to the cleaning location.

These differences result in a different environmental profile for the reusable PC-cups at large

events compared to their use at small events. Therefore we discuss again in detail the

environmental profile.

CONCLUSION

This paper suggests cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment as a method to analyze the plastic

cup waste of different event or occasions. This study examined various disposable and

reusable cups that are available on the market. It analyzed cups that are made from fossil

resources as well as renewable raw materials, biodegradable materials and loop-capable

materials. order to achieve reliable results, the necessary adaptations must be made. In

accordance with the issue, only those cup systems and materials were examined, which were

relevant for use. The new materials from renewable raw materials (PLA) or recyclable

material are at an early stage of development and warrant the expectation of future

improvements, which were not investigated.

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