Abstract
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) pollution in the marine environment is a pressing issue in Queensland, Australia due to a recent flood that scattered hundreds of EPS-containing pontoons along the coastline, causing severe ecological damage. To assist in the clean-up effort and provide crucial data for developing management guidelines, this study investigates the environmental performance of different end-of-life (EoL) disposal/recycling methods, including (i) landfill; (ii) on-site mechanical re-processing using a thermal densifier (MR); and (iii) on-site dissolution/precipitation using d-limonene (DP). Applying the life cycle assessment framework, the results showed that DP was the most environmentally favourable option. Its impacts in climate change (GWP), acidification (TAP), and fossil fuel depletion (FFD) were 612kg CO2 eq, 4.3kg SO2 eq, and 184.7kg oil eq, respectively. For comparison, the impacts of landfilling EPS in these categories were found to be 700kg CO2 eq, 3.5kg SO2 eq, and 282kg oil eq, respectively. Landfill also contributed considerably to eutrophication potential (MEP), at 3.77kgN eq. Impacts from MR were most significant due to the need to transport the densifier unit to the site. The analysis also revealed that the transportation of personnel and heavy machinery to the site, was the biggest contributor to impacts in the EoL stage. Its impacts in GWP, TAP, MEP, and FFD were 1369.8kg CO2 eq, 6.5kg SO2 eq, 0.2189kgN eq, and 497.7kg oil eq, respectively. Monte Carlo analysis showed that the conclusions made from these results were stable and reliable. Limitations of this model and recommendations for future investigations were also discussed in this work.
Published Version
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