Plastic Waste: Economic and Environmental Assessment of End-of-Life-Options

Plastics play an important role in addressing sustainability challenges. They help prevent food waste with packaging, and save energy via lightweight components for vehicles and insulation for buildings. However, with the heightened awareness about resources consumption and environmental concerns, plastic products are often perceived by the public and decision-makers as having negative impacts on sustainability. This, in turn, has led industry, as well as waste management services, to explore the best options for managing plastics at its end-of-life. Today we will discuss, through the use of life cycle assessment (LCA), the various end-of-life-options for plastic waste with Singapore as a case study. The analysis will include a side-by-side comparison of the potential environmental impacts of mechanical recycling, recycling into fuel and chemicals building blocks, and energy recovery. The costs of each option, as well as the potential final value of the recovered products will also be investigated.