Life Cycle Assessment of Microplastics Reveals Their Greater Environmental Hazards than Mismanaged Polymer Waste Losses

Abstract

Concern about microplastic pollution sourced from mismanaged plastic waste losses to drainage basins is growing but lacks relevant environmental impact analyses. Here, we reveal and compare the environmental hazards of aquatic macro- and microplastic debris through a holistic life cycle assessment approach. Compared to polymeric debris, microplastics, especially smaller than 10 μm, exhibit higher freshwater ecotoxicity enhanced by watersheds’ high average depth and low water temperature. High microplastic concentration within drainage basins can also cause air pollution regarding particulate matter formation and photochemical ozone formation. The environmental drawbacks of plastic mismanagement are then demonstrated by showing that the microplastic formulation and removal in drinking water treatment plants can pose more than 7.44% of the total ecotoxicity effect from plastic wastes’ (microplastics’) whole life cycle. Specifically, these two life cycle stages can also cause more than 50% of the plastic wastes’ life cycle ecotoxicity effect related to organic chemical emissions. Therefore, reducing environmentally harmful plastic losses through advanced plastic waste recycling, collection, and effective microplastic removal technologies needs future investigation.

Environmental Sustainability of the Globalized Pharmaceutical Supply Chains: The Case of Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate

“…In the last section, we demonstrate the environmental impacts and identify the environmental hotspots throughout API’s life cycle. To account for the parameter uncertainty embedded in the key inventory data, we conduct an uncertainty analysis on the solvent recovery rate and the hotspot material consumption using a Monte Carlo simulation-based approach. − In the Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis section, one can find details regarding the uncertainty analysis parameters. Specifically, hotspot materials considered in the uncertainty analysis include adenine, magnesium tert -butoxide, CMIC, tosylate, and ( R )-propylene carbonate.…”

An integrated chemical engineering approach to understanding microplastics

“…This viewpoint was recently used to help develop colloidal cellulose nanofibril networks that use electrostatic forces to entrap polystyrene nanoparticles. 35 Process systems engineering can develop lifecycle models of MP pollution 36 and develop AI characterization 37 and property prediction 25 models, which are key components in the proposed hybrid approach…”

“…This viewpoint was recently used to help develop colloidal cellulose nanofibril networks that use electrostatic forces to entrap polystyrene nanoparticles 35 . Process systems engineering can develop lifecycle models of MP pollution 36 and develop AI characterization 37 and property prediction 25 models, which are key components in the proposed hybrid approach (a specific example is described in Section 2.4). Reaction engineering and kinetics can guide the development of efficient methods to convert MPs into valuable chemical feedstocks and facilitate investigation of abiotic aging mechanisms and the interaction between aging pathways. The latter topic can be aided by insight from the field of materials synthesis and processing on the variability in plastic properties introduced by the variety of plastic manufacturing methods.…”

Cascading Polymer Macro-Debris Upcycling and Microparticle Removal as an Effective Life Cycle Plastic Pollution Mitigation Strategy

“…We then evaluated the functional unit-based environmental impacts by the overall environmental effects based on GWP, EF3.0, ReCiPe 2016, and USEtox indicators, which were typically used in plastic processing LCA studies, divided by the total PP manufactured from the cascaded life cycle. Specifically, the proposed fate modeling methodology given the previous work was applied to evaluate the ecotoxicity characterization factors, where the effect factors were assumed to be proportional to the hazardous concentration above 20% species (HC20) data and calculated by the dose–response result of polyethylene . Since the exposure factor of MPs was postulated to be one, the ecotoxicity characterization factors were equal to the product of the evaluated fate factor and effect factors.…”

“…Previous studies only assessed MP's full-spectrum life cycle environmental impacts without evaluating how many MPs are formed from the whole plastic life cycle. 33 This work analyzes the extent of material losses released to the natural environment from the plastic entire life cycle and their derived environmental impacts to help estimate the environmental impacts from the cascaded plastic life cycle. We cascade the life cycles of plastic waste and their material losses treated by pyrolysis upcycling to assess its environmental performance over other EoL waste management pathways in plastic pollution alleviation.…”