Abstract
The emerging packaging industry trend of focusing on packaging sustainability is also occurring in the laundry detergent industry. This study presents a cradle-to-grave comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of three different packaging systems for liquid laundry detergent: the conventional pourable bottle, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) container with pods, and flexible pouch with pods. The scope of this study included material production, intermediate processes, transportation, and end-of-life phases of each packaging system. The results showed that the conventional pourable bottle made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) has less environmental impact than the other two packaging systems in all impact categories, except ecotoxicity, due to the higher amount of packaging material required to produce the pods. The rigid PET container with pods impacted the environment in all categories more than the multi-layered flexible pouch containing pods, due primarily to the amount of material production, heavier weight, and intermediate processing using injection molding.
Highlights
A notable current trend in the packaging industry is sustainability
Consumers, government, and non-governmental organizations are most concerned about environmental impacts that can be generated by the waste from packaging systems [5,6,7,8]
The polyethylene terephthalate (PET) container with pods had the highest value in all impact categories, and the multi-layered pouch with pods had the second-highest value in most of the impact categories except for ecotoxicity. These results indicate that the PET container with pods packaging system releases comparably higher environmental impacts under all 10 considered impact categories than the other two packaging systems
Summary
A notable current trend in the packaging industry is sustainability. While the current research trend focuses on sustainability, the environmental impact of the generation of packaging waste is significant [2]. Packaging waste from household products accounts for a substantial share of the total amount of municipal solid waste; 23–34% by weight [2,3]. In 2017, the category of containers and packaging waste constituted the largest percentage (29.9%) among municipal solid waste, composing 80 of 268 million total tons [4]. Consumers, government, and non-governmental organizations are most concerned about environmental impacts that can be generated by the waste from packaging systems [5,6,7,8]
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