The new report, titled ‘Examining material evidence – the carbon fingerprint’, commissioned by Veolia and published today (6 June) by Imperial College, set out to highlight the ‘importance of plastic as a material’ compared to alternatives when examining the carbon emissions. The report analysed over 70 life-cycle assessments to evaluate the environmental impacts of packaging alternatives over their life-time, including impacts from mining, manufacturing, logistics, usage and end-of-life management covering recycling or disposal.
By assessing many different studies with different assumptions, the overarching message was that plastic can provide the lowest carbon emissions of available materials providing it is recycled properly, and effectively debunking the growing movement to switch away from plastic in all scenarios. Professor Nick Voulvoulis, Professor of Environmental Technology, Imperial College London, said: “Plastics have a large and unacceptable impact on the marine environment, and potentially impacts to human and ecosystem health that are not fully understood, and cannot easily be incorporated into life-cycle assessments.
Although only 2% of British people believe that plastic contributes the least greenhouse gases to the environment from its production, use and recycling, in the majority of cases the main alternatives for packaging including cardboard, glass, steel and aluminium emit more greenhouse gases than plastic, the report found. Case in point, if all plastic bottles used globally were made from glass instead, the additional carbon emissions would be equivalent to 22 large coal-fired power plants producing enough electricity for a third of the UK. Richard Kirkman, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Veolia UK and Ireland said: “As we look to build the green recovery and achieve a net zero carbon world, this report helps to emphasise that plastic has a key role to play as a material, but only if it is responsibly minimised, produced, used and recycled. “With only 9% of plastics being recycled worldwide, there is still a lot to do to improve things. We have done it for paper, metals and glass which are widely recycled, but plastic is a newer material and so we need the right policy drivers in place, backed by consumer and manufacturer awareness, to allow us to build the new recycling infrastructure.
Source: Circular Online
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