Linking LCA literature with circular economy value creation: A review on beverage packaging

Sazdovski, Ilija; Bala, Alba; Fullana–i–Palmer, Pere

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145322

Cited by 57 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Finally, focusing on the end-of-life phase of the two packaging alternatives, it is worth noting that the glass system registered higher environmental benefits mainly due to the recycling processes of the packaging materials [20]. The end-of-life of the PET system was less advantageous in environmental terms because of two main factors: the lower recycling rate and the lower quality of the secondary raw material produced by the recycling process compared to the virgin material [4].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…-About the primary and secondary packaging of the systems, all the components (except the glass bottle) were produced with 100% virgin raw materials; -For the new glass bottles (i.e., those that replace the reusable bottles to be collected and sent to recycling) a recycled glass content of 70% in the production process of the bottles was considered because white glass is used and a lower recycled content is expected for this type of glass rather than for green glass bottles [4,23]; -Regarding to the tertiary packaging components, a recycled fibers content of 80% was considered in the production process of cardboard sheets while it was assumed that the PE stretch film was manufactured with only virgin PE. For both systems, the production of all the components of primary, secondary and tertiary packaging were considered with the following assumptions derived from the data and information provided by the bottling company:…”

Section: Goal and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently, life cycle assessment (LCA) is the most used methodology for the sustainability assessment of alternative systems. LCA allows for the comparison of the potential environmental impacts occurring during all the life cycle phases (e.g., raw material extrac-2 of 13 tion, manufacturing, processing, packaging, transportation, use, end-of-life) of alternative systems [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

LCA of Glass Versus PET Mineral Water Bottles: An Italian Case Study

2021

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Due to the serious problem of plastic pollution in aquatic environment, many people reject plastic packaging in favour of glass containers which are considered more sustainable. To avoid misjudgements, the sustainability assessment of packaging alternatives should be carried out with a life cycle thinking approach. In this regard, the study presents a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of two alternative packaging systems for drinking water: reusable glass bottles and polyethylene (PET) bottles. The case study was performed considering the real data of an Italian mineral water company that bottles and distributes both natural and sparkling water. The environmental impacts of the two packaging systems were estimated with the ReCiPe 2016 (H) evaluation method adopting both midpoint and endpoint approaches. The results showed that the PET bottle is the most sustainable alternative for natural water for many impact categories; while, in the case of sparkling water, the environmental impacts of the two packaging systems are similar and the most environmentally sound solution can vary depending on the impact category. The following are the most significant aspects of the analysis: (1) the number of reuses of a single glass bottle; (2) the distribution distance. Their variation can determine which packaging is the most sustainable. Therefore, a life cycle assessment approach is needed for each specific case.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Goal and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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LCA of Glass Versus PET Mineral Water Bottles: An Italian Case Study

2021

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“…As shown in Table 7, comparing the energy mix (Scenario 1) with only nuclear energy (Scenario 2) and introducing it as an energy input into PET bottle manufacturing, Scenario 2 yielded lower ADPE values by two orders of magnitude. The improved practice of LCAs could improve new production strategies aimed at prolonging the lifecycle of packaging PET [68]. Therefore, we tried to present a practical example of a manufacturing process for the different energy inputs whose LCA analysis results may be useful in the future.…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation into the Current State of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Waste Management—A State-of-the-Art Review

Alwaeli

Mannheim

2022

Energies

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Nuclear power can replace fossil fuels and will have a decisive impact on the change in the approach to conventional energy. However, nuclear (or radioactive) wastes are produced by the operation of the nuclear reactors should be safely and properly disposed of. This paper assesses the uranium resources and the global state of nuclear power plants and determines the energy mixes in different countries using the most nuclear energy. Furthermore, this paper analysed the nuclear waste management and disposal and the depletion of abiotic resources, and the primary energy sources of a basic production process using electricity mix and nuclear electricity for a basic production (PET bottle manufacturing) process. The life cycle assessment was completed by applying the GaBi 8.0 (version 10.6) software and the CML method. In this study, we limit our discussion to high-level nuclear waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) waste. We do not consider waste generated from uranium mining and milling, which is usually disposed of in near-surface impoundments close to the mine or the mill. The investigation of waste management methods is limited to European countries. This research work is relevant because determining abiotic resources is important in a life cycle assessment and current literature available on LCA analysis for nuclear powers remains under-developed. These results can guide and compare manufacturing processes involving a nuclear electricity and electricity grid mix input. The results of this research can be used to develop production processes using nuclear energy with lower abiotic depletion impacts. This research work facilitates the industry in making predictions for a production-scale plant using an LCA of production processes with nuclear energy consumption.

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“…Sustainable or ecological design becomes more effective if working with LCA. Civancik-Uslu et al [13] used LCA to figure out the key life cycle stage of cosmetic packaging to implement eco-design is the raw material Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool for quantitative research on the sustainability of a system or product as an observer; it has been used to evaluate the environmental impact of a set of raw materials for packaging, including wood and plastic material [6], PET bottle [7], biomass-based and oil-based plastics [8], beverage packaging [9], multilayer polymer bag [10] and bio-plastic for food packaging [11]. LCA is also recommended by Escursell et al [12] as a tool to verify the environmental performance of the new solutions for packaging design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Design Strategy of Cosmetic Packaging in China Based on Life Cycle Assessment

2022

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Consumptions of cosmetics present a steady growth trend from 2018 to 2021 in China. While environmental impact generated are becoming prominent issues. Numbers of research on the sustainability of cosmetics are focusing on ingredient choices and production; however, the packaging generates more impact than the ingredient extraction in some specific scenarios, and it should be paid more attention to. The role of packaging deserves deep consideration under the background of a circular economy. This research aims to: (i) figure out the impact hotspot through life cycle assessment (LCA) of representative cosmetic packaging in the Chinese market, (ii) conduct a series of sensitivity analyses to figure out to what extent these potential scenarios influence the environmental performance of the packaging, (iii) obtain the significance of these variables to the sustainable design of the packaging. Finally, a set of sustainable design strategies for cosmetic packaging are proposed for the designer from the aspect of facilitating user reuse and recycling behaviour, material selection, and others.

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Linking LCA literature with circular economy value creation: A review on beverage packaging

Cited by 57 publications

References 66 publications

LCA of Glass Versus PET Mineral Water Bottles: An Italian Case Study

LCA of Glass Versus PET Mineral Water Bottles: An Italian Case Study

Investigation into the Current State of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Waste Management—A State-of-the-Art Review

Sustainable Design Strategy of Cosmetic Packaging in China Based on Life Cycle Assessment

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