A Synopsis

On

A Life Cycle Assessment Approach for Better Management of Plastic

Wastes: A Case Study

By
Yash Aryan
16MT001054

Under the Guidance of:

Dr. S. R. Samadder
Associate Professor

Master of Technology
In
Environmental Science & Engineering

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines)
Dhanbad-826004
1. Introduction

Plastic wastes are the plastics which is discarded after use. The plastic waste constitutes two
major categories of plastics; thermoplastics and thermoset plastics. Thermoplastics,
constitutes 80% and thermoset constitutes approximately 20% of total post-consumer plastics
waste generated in India (CPCB 2016). The Thermoplastics are recyclable plastics which
include; Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polyvinyl
Chloride (PVC), High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Polypropylene(PP), Polystyrene (PS)
etc. whereas thermoset plastics cannot be remoulded again and hence are not mechanically
recyclable. Plastics waste is a significant portion of the total municipal solid waste (MSW). It
is estimated that out of 1.20 lacs tons/day of MSW generated in the country, that contains
approximately 9% of plastic wastes (CPCB 2016). Further it is found that HDPE and LDPE
constitutes about 65% of total plastic waste generated (CPCB 2015).

Rapid increase in plastic waste generation rate causes the mismanagement of plastic waste
throughout the country. Plastic waste is now creating challenges for the society due to its
non-biodegradable nature. Plastic waste is chemically stable in nature and it remains in the
dump-yards and landfills sites for thousands of years after disposal (Barnes et al. 2009).
Approximately 8.8 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the Earth’s oceans every year. India
dumps about 0.6 million tonnes plastic waste in ocean and rivers (Jambeck et al. 2015). Ever
increase in plastic waste in the country has created serious environmental and health related
problems. Plastic wastes gets accumulated on the streets, roads, beaches and deteriorates the
aesthetic value. There are various plastic waste management options such as landfilling,
incineration, mechanical recycling and feedstock recycling (pyrolysis, gasification and
hydrogenation). Open dumping, landfilling and incineration of plastics waste causes
environmental and human health related problems (Arena et al. 2003). Incineration of plastic
waste releases harmful toxic emissions into the atmosphere such as dioxins, polychlorinated
biphenyls and furans (Gilpin et al. 2003). The landfilling of plastic waste creates soil
pollution, ground water pollution and requires huge land areas. Feedstock recycling is not so
popular in India as it needs high capital cost and as 80% of plastic waste is thermoplastic in
India, so mechanical recycling is favourable. Recycling of plastic waste is the most promising
process for plastic waste management (PWM) in order to promote sustainable development
(Ye et al. 2017) as it provides substitution for virgin plastic and saves the crude oil. But
recycling of a virgin plastic material can be done 2-3 times only, because after every
recycling, the plastic material deteriorates due to thermal pressure and its life span is reduced.
Sometimes recycled products are more harmful to the environment as thus contains additives
and colours. Recycling of plastic waste may have certain setbacks. Recycling involves plenty
of human workers and the process may not be economically feasible. It also involves
machine and equipment which consume energy and hence contribute to global warming
potential (GWP).

Plastic recycling is a process which contains collection, sorting and reprocessing of plastic
waste into useful products. One of the key benefits of recycling of plastics waste is to reduce
the requirement for virgin plastic in plastic production (Hopewell et al. 2009). There are four
types of recycling of plastic wastes according to Indian Standards (IS 14534:1998), first is
primary recycling which involves processing of a waste into a product with characteristics
similar to those of the original product. Second type of recycling is secondary recycling
involving processing of waste into materials that have characteristics different from those of
the original plastic products. Third is tertiary recycling involves the production of basic
chemicals and fuels from plastic wastes and the last is quaternary recycling that recovers the
energy content of plastics by burning and incineration. Recycling of plastics should be carried
in a manner to minimize pollution during the process and to enhance efficiency and conserve
the energy (CPCB 2016). Since the majority of plastic wastes is non-biodegradable, recycling
is a part of global efforts to reduce plastic in the waste stream.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an effective tool to measure the environmental impacts of
any product or process (Heijungs et al. 2009). Life cycle methodology consists of four
phases: goal and scope definition (objective of the study), inventory analysis (data
collection), environmental impact assessment and results interpretation. In Indian scenario,
recycling of plastic wastes can be established either as an environmental benefit or as an
environmental burden. LCA study will be implemented on the existing plastic waste
recycling process to evaluate the impacts on various impact categories of each of the steps of
recycling by quantifying all inputs and outputs of material flows.

The purpose of this study is to examine the existing scenario of plastic waste recycling in the
study area. The study will evaluate the environmental impacts of plastic waste recycling
process for suggesting alternatives of plastics waste management options with the help of
LCA.

1.1 Different types of plastics and their uses

The plastics materials are categorized in seven types based on properties and their
applications. In order to make the recycling easier, the universally accepted standards have
been developed to help consumers to identify and sort out types of plastics with marking
code. The seven types of symbols used are accepted by the Bureau of Indian standard (BIS),
as shown in Table 1 (CPCB, 2015).

Table 1: Type of plastics with their source code and applications.

Sr. No Source Code Name of Plastics Few Applications

1. Polyethylene Drinking water bottles, soft drink bottles,
Terephthalate (PET) food jars, jell pickles, plastics films and
sheets.
2. High Density Plastics bags, food containers, woven
Polyethylene (HDPE) sacks, bottles, plastics toys, milk pouches
and and and shopping bags and metalized pouches.
Low Density
Polyethylene (LDPE)
 3. Polyvinyl Chloride Pipes, hoses, sheets, wire, cable insulations
(PVC) multilayer and tubes.

4. Disposable cups, bottle caps and straws.

Polypropylene (PP)

5. Polystyrene (PS) Disposable cups, glasses, plates, spoons,

trays, CD covers, cassette boxes and
foams.
6. Thermoset, Poly CD, melamine plates, helmets and shoe
carbonate(PC), Poly soles.
urethane (PU), FRP

2. Literature Review

LCA studies have been reported in developed countries in order to perceive potential
environmental impacts of a product, system and process throughout its life cycle (Heijungs et
al. 2009). Beigl & Salhofer (2004) compared three different waste management scenarios of
rural communities in Austria. The study compared recycling by bring collection; recycling by
kerbside collection and no-recycling. The study concluded that recycling scenarios performed
better in acidification and net energy use impact categories. In GWP impact category,
kerbside collection with recycling had less environmental impact due to less fuel
consumption in transportation. Shen et al. (2011) conducted LCA study for assessment of
greenhouse gas emission from PET recycling. The study compared the baseline recycling
system, where PET is recycled once, with the reference system, where PET is not recycled.
Comparing the baseline recycling system with the reference system, the study found that
environmental impacts both non-renewable energy use and global warming were reduced by
approximately 20% by the baseline recycling system. The savings mainly originate from the
decrease of virgin PET fibre requirements. Al-Maaded et al. (2012) carried out a LCA study
of solid waste management in Qatar. The study compared three different scenarios: recycling
of plastic waste, composting and landfilling. The results were found that the recycling of
plastic wastes was the most favoured solution for the plastic waste management, because it
has the lowest environmental impact on GWP and human toxicity potential (HTP). Ye et al.
(2017) reported LCA study of primary polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production and its recycling
in China. In this study, comparison was made between primary PVC production and recycled
PVC. Recycled PVC showed better environmental response than primary PVC production in
all impact categories.
In national context, only a few LCA studies have been performed. Srivastava and Nema
(2011) conducted a LCA study in Delhi to examine the environmental impacts caused by
different MSW management options, considering recycling, composting, incineration and
landfilling. The study concluded that recycling has the least environmental impact among all
MSW management options considered. Sharma and Chandel (2016) compared six scenarios,
such as landfill with biogas collection; incineration and different combinations of recycling;
landfill; composting; anaerobic digestion and incineration. The study found that integrated
MSWM approach with a mix of recycling of packaging waste had the lowest environmental
impact. The previously reported LCA studies mentioned above belongs to MSWM, but no
LCA study has been conducted for recycling of plastic wastes.

3. Justification of Work

A few LCA studies on recycling of plastic wastes have been carried out in countries other
than India such as the studies by Song and Hyun (1999), Lazarevic and Brandt (2010), Al-
Maaded et al. (2012) and Kang et al. (2016); but no reported studies on LCA of recycling of
plastic wastes in India is available. The present study will find the various inputs and outputs
involved in different steps of plastic wastes recycling. The study will apply LCA technique to
quantify the environmental impacts of whole process along with proposal of alternative
plastic recycling process using LCA.

4. Study Area

Dhanbad city is one of the major district of Jharkhand state in India, which is located in the
eastern part of the country. A study conducted by CPCB revealed that average plastic waste
generation in Dhanbad was about 50.16 kg/metric tonne of MSW. It has been found from the
survey data that approximately 69% of total plastic wastes is composed of HDPE and LDPE
materials. The present study will be carried out for Dhanbad city.

5. Objectives

 Identification of the different plastic waste recycling routes in the study area.
 Application of LCA on the existing scenario of plastic waste recycling in study
area.
 Identification of alternative plastic waste recycling process using LCA.

6. Methodology

 Survey of the study area to find out various routes of plastic waste recycling in
study area.
 Data collection of various inputs and outputs in different steps of plastic waste
recycling and application of LCA on collected data.
 Survey for identification of alterative plastic waste recycling process and data
collection.
 Environmental impact assessment and proposal of alternative recycling process
using LCA.
 Results and interpretation.

Literature Review

Interaction with Municipal

Corporation, traders and identification
of plastic waste management units

Questionnaire survey in
study area
 Survey for identification of alterative
plastic waste recycling process and
data collection.

Application of LCA on collected data

and proposal of alternative recycling
process using LCA.

Interpretation of
Results

Fig.1: Methodology of study

7. Work Plan

Table 2: Sequence of proposed work

Work distribution during different Jun -Aug Sep-Oct Nov-Dec Jan-Feb March-
months April

Literature Review

Preparing questionnaire and survey for

collection of data from existing
scenario
Survey for identification of alterative
plastic waste recycling process and data
collection
Environmental impact assessment and
proposal of alternative recycling
process using LCA
Paper writing & final thesis submission

7. References
Al-Maaded, M., Madi, N. K., Kahraman, R., Hodzic, A., & Ozerkan, N. G. (2012). An
overview of solid waste management and plastic recycling in Qatar. Journal of Polymers
and the Environment, 20(1), 186-194.

Arena, U., Mastellone, M. L., & Perugini, F. (2003). Life cycle assessment of a plastic
packaging recycling system. The international journal of life cycle assessment, 8(2), 92-
98.

Barnes, D. K., Galgani, F., Thompson, R. C., & Barlaz, M. (2009). Accumulation and
fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments. Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 364(1526), 1985-1998.

Beigl, P., & Salhofer, S. (2004). Comparison of ecological effects and costs of communal
waste management systems. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 41(2), 83-102.

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), (2015). Assessment & Quantification of

PlasticsWaste Generation in Major Cities. Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate
Change (MoEFCC) <http://cpcb.nic.in/PW-Report-2015.pdf> (accessed 22.05.2017).

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), (2016). Plastic Waste Management

<http://cpcb.nic.in/PW-Report-2015.pdf> (accessed 26.05.2017).

City Development Plan for Dhanbad-JnNURM (CDP), (2007). <http://jnnurm.nic.in/wp-

content/uploads/2010/12/Dhanbad_CEPT.pdf> (accessed 10.05.2016).

Gilpin, R. K., Wagel, D. J., & Solch, J. G. (2003). Production, distribution, and fate of
polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins, dibenzofurans, and related organohalogens in the
environment. Dioxins and Health, Second Edition, 55-87.
Heijungs, R., Huppes, G., & Guinée, J. B. (2010). Life cycle assessment and sustainability
analysis of products, materials and technologies. Toward a scientific framework for
sustainability life cycle analysis. Polymer degradation and stability, 95(3), 422-428.

Hopewell, J., Dvorak, R., & Kosior, E. (2009). Plastics recycling: challenges and
opportunities. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological
Sciences, 364(1526), 2115-2126.

Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., Perryman, M., Andrady, A.,& Law, K.
L. (2015). Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science, 347(6223), 768-771.

Lazarevic, D., Aoustin, E., Buclet, N., & Brandt, N. (2010). Plastic waste management in the
context of a European recycling society: comparing results and uncertainties in a life
cycle perspective. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 55(2), 246-259.

Sharma, B. K., & Chandel, M. K. (2017). Life cycle assessment of potential municipal solid
waste management strategies for Mumbai, India. Waste Management & Research, 35(1),
79-91.
 Shen, L., Nieuwlaar, E., Worrell, E., & Patel, M. K. (2011). Life cycle energy and GHG
emissions of PET recycling: change-oriented effects. The International Journal of Life
Cycle Assessment, 16(6), 522-536.

Song, H. S., & Hyun, J. C. (1999). A study on the comparison of the various waste
management scenarios for PET bottles using the life-cycle assessment (LCA)
methodology. Resources, conservation and recycling, 27(3), 267-284.

Srivastava, A. K., & Nema, A. K. (2011). Life cycle assessment of integrated solid waste
management system of Delhi. Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Management, 267-276.

Ye, L., Qi, C., Hong, J., & Ma, X. (2017). Life cycle assessment of polyvinyl chloride
production and its recyclability in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 142, 2965-2972.

YASH ARYAN Dr. S.R. Samadder

16MT001054 Associate Professor
(Guide)