Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Primary Energy Demand of Agricultural Greenhouse Plastics: Proposed Optimization toward Agricultural Plastic Sustainability

Abstract

The agricultural greenhouse plastics have resulted in significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and primary energy demand (PED), hindering the achievement of agricultural plastics sustainability and energy conservation and emission reduction policies. Starting from three sustainability measures, this paper quantified the impacts of raw material selection, management measures, and green energy use on GHG emissions and PED for 6 petroleum-based plastics and 17 biobased plastics used in plastic greenhouse systems and analyzed their uncertainties using Monte Carlo simulation. The results demonstrated that any of the three measures could effectively reduce the environmental impact of agricultural greenhouse plastics, but the combination of the three measures changed the optimal choice of waste plastic management measures. Specifically, waste biobased plastics with negative GHG emissions in the production process could be treated in landfills to achieve optimal carbon reduction effects. Moreover, the utilization of low-carbon electricity significantly reduces the environmental benefits associated with incineration power generation.