Life Cycle Economy and Life Cycle Assessment

The principle of sustainable development in Europe is the reason for the introduction of the closed loop economy in the European Union. Products have to be produced and used in a resource-conserving manner as well as recovered after use, if they cannot be avoided at all. The systematic and ultimate reduction of waste ending up in landfill is a declared goal of European Policy.

A key tool to measure products’ or services’ environmental impact is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Through LCA it is possible to account for all the environmental impacts associated with a product or service. It covers all stages in a product’s life from the extraction of resources to ultimate disposal. LCA is the tool that allows to measure and to report on current impacts, alternative scenarios and improvements achieved.

European Bioplastics supports LCA and Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) in order to promote, quantify, and substantiate the environmental sustainability of products. As emphasised before, it is crucial to take the complete product life cycle into account, as products may have entirely different environmental impacts during the single stages of their life cycle. LCT comprises the analysis of complete systems and avoids burden shifting from one life cycle stage to another, from one geographic area to another, and from one environmental medium to another.

There is no such thing as “THE Life Cycle Assessment of Bioplastics”. LCA applies to specific products (goods and services) and not to bioplastics in general or the nature of the material used. The final conclusions about the environmental performance of bioplastic applications depend on many different parameters. These include the type of bioplastics used, the raw materials used, the production and conversion technology, the product, means of transport and distances, the consumer use phase, as well as the used waste collection and disposal or recycling system(s).

© European Bioplastics 2011