Pragati Pooja, Maeda Yasunobu
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan.
Management of Business Development, Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan.
Risk Anal. 2023 Aug;43(8):1682-1693. doi: 10.1111/risa.14031. Epub 2022 Oct 28.
Several Japanese companies and the government are recently promoting a plastic ban and imposing a tax levy to curb litter and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This has led to a rapid rise of nonplastic packaging alternatives. While plastics and litter are pressing concerns, it is paramount to examine environmental risks of other alternatives before wide application and legislative action, to not further the risk of environmental damage. This study aims to quantify and compare plastic products such as polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) bottles and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags with widely available alternatives in Japan like glass bottles, aluminum bottles, paper bags, and textile bags, to find a product with the least environmental impact. A life cycle assessment is conducted from a cradle-to-grave environmental impact approach that includes raw material extraction, production, transportation, end-of-life treatment, and disposal. Sixteen impact categories including climate change, acidification, aquatic-toxicity, so forth, and weighing is assessed using the MiLCA software. The functional unit is one piece of each packaging product, and impacts of product-filling, storage, recycling, and reuse are excluded for a consistent comparison. HDPE bags performed better than paper and textile bags in 15 of the 16 analyzed impact categories. Similarly, PET bottles outperformed aluminum and glass bottles in 12 out of the 16 impact categories analyzed. Weighted results also highlight the heightened negative environmental impacts of replacing plastic packaging with widely available alternatives.
几家日本公司和政府最近正在推动塑料禁令并征收税款，以遏制垃圾并减少温室气体排放。这导致了非塑料包装替代品的迅速兴起。虽然塑料和垃圾是紧迫问题，但在广泛应用和立法行动之前，检查其他替代品的环境风险以避免进一步造成环境破坏风险至关重要。本研究旨在对聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯（PET）瓶和高密度聚乙烯（HDPE）袋等塑料制品与日本广泛使用的替代品（如玻璃瓶、铝瓶、纸袋和纺织袋）进行量化和比较，以找到对环境影响最小的产品。从摇篮到坟墓的环境影响方法进行生命周期评估，包括原材料提取、生产、运输、生命周期结束处理和处置。使用MiLCA软件评估包括气候变化、酸化、水生毒性等在内的16个影响类别，并进行加权。功能单元是每个包装产品的一件，为了进行一致的比较，排除了产品填充、储存、回收和再利用的影响。在分析的16个影响类别中的15个类别中，HDPE袋的表现优于纸袋和纺织袋。同样，在分析的16个影响类别中的12个类别中，PET瓶的表现优于铝瓶和玻璃瓶。加权结果还凸显了用广泛使用的替代品取代塑料包装会加剧负面环境影响。
