The Cradle-to-Cradle Life Cycle Assessment of Polyethylene terephthalate: Environmental Perspective.

Muhammad Tamoor,Maohua Yang,Jianmin Xing,Nadia A Samak

doi:10.3390/molecules27051599

Abstract

Over the last several years, the number of concepts and technologies enabling the production of environmentally friendly products (including materials, consumables, and services) has expanded. One of these ways is cradle-to-cradle (C2C) certifiedTM. Life cycle assessment (LCA) technique is used to highlight the advantages of C2C and recycling as a method for reducing plastic pollution and fossil depletion by indicating the research limitations and gaps from an environmental perspective. Also, it estimates the resources requirements and focuses on sound products and processes. The C2C life cycle measurements for petroleum-based poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) bottles, with an emphasis on different end-of-life options for recycling, were taken for mainland China, in brief. It is considered that the product is manufactured through the extraction of crude oil into ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid. The CML analysis method was used in the LCIA for the selected midpoint impact categories. LCA of the product has shown a drastic aftermath in terms of environmental impacts and energy use. But the estimation of these consequences is always dependent on the system and boundary conditions that were evaluated throughout the study. The impacts that burden the environment are with the extraction of raw material, resin, and final product production. Minor influences occurred due to the waste recycling process. This suggests that waste degradation is the key process to reduce the environmental impacts of the production systems. Lowering a product’s environmental impact can be accomplished in a number of ways, including reducing the amount of materials used or choosing materials with a minimal environmental impact during manufacture processes.

Highlights

The crucial question is, why is the China region considered for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) Life cycle assessment (LCA)? It is due to the fact that “the China waste management market is extremely competitive and is predicted to develop at a CAGR of more than 7% during the forecast period of 2019–2024
Pre-treatment and recycling have been demonstrated to mitigate their impact in C2C assessments, the growing volume of plastic waste and the low percentage of recyclable plastic used underscore the critical nature of the post-treatment of plastic waste
LCA is not limited to environmental assessment; it is considered to be a holistic tool that considers the life cycle cost of the proposed solution and the entire process

Summary

Introduction

Human actions have generated a variety of environmental issues during the previous few centuries. More than a dozen environmental factors have had an enormous impact on human life, such as the following: climate change, glacier melts, the depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation and the loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and water pollution. Because we have made so many synthetic and chemically complex chemicals, there are no natural analogues. They are harmful since we do not know how long they take to degrade or what effect they have on living things. PET is one of those plastics that we cannot live without.

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