End-of-Life Options for Bio-Based Plastics in a Circular Economy—Status Quo and Potential from a Life Cycle Assessment Perspective
- authored by
- Sebastian Spierling, Venkateshwaran Venkatachalam, Marina Mudersbach, Nico Becker, Christoph Herrmann, Hans Josef Endres
- Abstract
The bio-based plastic market is forecast to grow in the next years. With a growing market share and product range, the implementation of circular thinking is becoming more and more important also for bio-based plastics to enable a sound circular economy for these group of plastics. Therefore, it is important to assess the environmental performance for different end-of-life options of bio-based plastics from an early stage on. This review presents a comprehensive overview on the current status quo of different end-of-life options for bio-based plastics from an environmental perspective. Based on the status quo and the corresponding impact assessment results, the global plastic demand as well as the technical substitution potential of bio-based plastics, the environmental saving potential in case of the different end-of-life options was calculated. The review shows that there is a focus on polylactic acid (PLA) regarding end-of-life assessment, with studies covering all end-of-life options. The focus of the impact assessment has been set on global warming potential (GWP). With respect to GWP, the analysis of a future global potential of PLA showed, for mechanical recycling, the highest saving potential with 94.1 Mio. t CO2-eq. per year in comparison to virgin material.
- Organisation(s)
-
Institute of Plastics and Circular Economy
- External Organisation(s)
-
Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research - Wilhelm Klauditz Institute (WKI)
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover (HsH)
Technische Universität Braunschweig
- Type
- Review article
- Journal
- Resources
- Volume
- 9
- Publication date
- 21.07.2020
- Publication status
- Published
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Nature and Landscape Conservation, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
- Electronic version(s)
-
https://doi.org/10.3390/RESOURCES9070090 (Access:
Open)
