Journal ArticleDOI
Life cycle assessments of biodegradable, commercial biopolymers—A critical review
TLDR
In this paper, a review of biodegradable biopolymers, poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(hydroxyalkanoates) (PHAs), and starch-based polymers, was conducted to determine the environmental impact of each in comparison to petrochemical polymers.Abstract:
Biopolymers are generally considered an eco-friendly alternative to petrochemical polymers due to the renewable feedstock used to produce them and their biodegradability. However, the farming practices used to grow these feedstocks often carry significant environmental burdens, and the production energy can be higher than for petrochemical polymers. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) are available in the literature, which make comparisons between biopolymers and various petrochemical polymers, however the results can be very disparate. This review has therefore been undertaken, focusing on three biodegradable biopolymers, poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(hydroxyalkanoates) (PHAs), and starch-based polymers, in an attempt to determine the environmental impact of each in comparison to petrochemical polymers. Reasons are explored for the discrepancies between these published LCAs. The majority of studies focused only on the consumption of non-renewable energy and global warming potential and often found these biopolymers to be superior to petrochemically derived polymers. In contrast, studies which considered other environmental impact categories as well as those which were regional or product specific often found that this conclusion could not be drawn. Despite some unfavorable results for these biopolymers, the immature nature of these technologies needs to be taken into account as future optimization and improvements in process efficiencies are expected.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Catalysis as an Enabling Science for Sustainable Polymers
TL;DR: This review provides a system-level analysis of sustainable polymers and outlines key criteria with respect to the feedstocks the polymers are derived from, the manner in which thepolymers are generated, and the end-of-use options.
Journal ArticleDOI
Strategies to reduce the global carbon footprint of plastics
Jiajia Zheng,Sangwon Suh +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compile a dataset covering ten conventional and five bio-based plastics and their life-cycle GHG emissions under various mitigation strategies and demonstrate the need for integrating energy, materials, recycling, and demand management strategies to curb growing life cycle emissions from plastics.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental performance of bio-based and biodegradable plastics: the road ahead
TL;DR: There is a need to assess the performance of polymer innovations in terms of their biodegradability especially under realistic waste management and environmental conditions, to avoid the unwanted release of plastic degradation products in receiving environments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microbial enzymes for the recycling of recalcitrant petroleum-based plastics: how far are we?
Ren Wei,Wolfgang Zimmermann +1 more
TL;DR: This review is focused on microbial biocatalysts involved in the degradation of the synthetic plastics polyethylene, polystyrene, polyurethane andpolyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Journal ArticleDOI
Prospects for microbiological solutions to environmental pollution with plastics
TL;DR: A comprehensive overview of the current knowledge on microbiological degradation of several of the most common plastic types is provided to illustrate the analytical challenges concerning the evaluation of plastic biodegradation as well as constraints likely standing against the evolution of effective biodegrading pathways.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Polylactic Acid Technology
TL;DR: Polylactic acid is proving to be a viable alternative to petrochemical-based plastics for many applications It is produced from renewable resources and is biodegradable, decomposing to give H2O, CO2, and humus, the black material in soil as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Life cycle assessment: Part 1: Framework, goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, and applications
Gerald Rebitzer,Tomas Ekvall,Rolf Frischknecht,D Hunkeler,Gregory A. Norris,Tomas Rydberg,W-P Schmidt,Sangwon Suh,Bo Pedersen Weidema,David Pennington +9 more
TL;DR: The LCA framework and procedure is introduced, how to define and model a product's life cycle is outlined, and an overview of available methods and tools for tabulating and compiling associated emissions and resource consumption data in a life cycle inventory (LCI) is provided.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities
TL;DR: Advances in technologies and systems for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of recyclable plastics are creating new opportunities for recycling, and with the combined actions of the public, industry and governments it may be possible to divert the majority of plastic waste from landfills to recycling over the next decades.
Journal ArticleDOI
Applications of life cycle assessment to NatureWorks polylactide (PLA) production
TL;DR: The role of life cycle assessment (LCA) is discussed in this paper, a tool used for measuring environmental sustainability and identifying environmental performance-improvement objectives, and an overview of applications of LCA to PLA production and how they are utilized.
Journal ArticleDOI
Recent advances in microbial polyhydroxyalkanoates
TL;DR: It is hoped that with improvement in fermentation and downstream processing techniques, development of new recombinant strains and large-scale production by transgenic plants will reduce the cost of production of PHAs thereby making them competitive with conventional plastics.