Circular economy strategies for the booming industrial pallet use in China

Abstract

The international trade is experiencing rapid growth worldwide. Pallets play an important role in protecting and transporting over 80 % of global trade, while also bring environmental implications. Currently, research on identifying the environmental impact reduction pathway for different types of pallets in the second-largest pallet holder, China, is lacking. This study aims to provide a comprehensive framework to improve the environmental performance of the pallet industry in China. The framework is composed of three scenarios which represent the pallet system as in China today, the establishment of a pallet sharing system and the adoption of circular economy (CE). The framework is validated by adopting life cycle assessment and scenario analysis. Results show that the Chinese pallet market can achieve a remarkable environmental impact reduction by 95.2 % and 97.3 %, respectively, by adopting the sharing system and CE strategies. Especially, carbon footprint can be reduced by 95 % (from 43.23 to 2.14 billion kg CO2) under the sharing system, and by 98.1 % (to 0.8 billion kg CO2) under the CE scenario. The sharing system reduces the impacts of freshwater consumption (FC) category by 93 % (from 284.81 million m3 to 19.40 million m3) and the impacts of terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE) category by 90 % (from 18.48 billion to 1.76 billion kg 1,4-DB eq). In the CE scenario, the impacts of FC drop by 94 % (to 16.38 million m3) and the impacts of TE decrease by 99 % (to 0.27 billion kg 1,4-DB eq) compared to the base case. The study recommends prioritising measures to enhance awareness and adoption of CE, focusing on addressing tonnage loss and developing robust infrastructure for efficient pallet management.