Life Cycle Assessment of the existing and proposed plastic waste management options in India: A case study

Abstract In this study, Life Cycle Assessment technique has been used to assess possible environmental impacts of the existing and proposed plastic waste management scenarios on various impact categories for the study area Dhanbad city, India. This study considered two major plastic wastes, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and Polyethylene (PE). The scenarios considered in the present study are Landfilling without bio-gas recovery (denoted by S1); Incineration without energy recovery (denoted by S2); Recycling (denoted by S3) and Incineration with energy recovery (denoted by S4). The environmental impacts of all the four scenarios (S1 to S4) were evaluated and compared. The method used was CML 2 baseline 2000 method, and the results showed that the scenario S3 had the least environmental impacts on most of the impact categories due to use of recycled PET and PE flakes as substitution for virgin PET and PE flakes and also due to less emissions during recycling process of these two plastic wastes. Scenario S2 had the highest environmental impacts on most of the impact categories. S4 had lower environmental impacts than scenario S3 on abiotic depletion, abiotic depletion (fossil fuel), and acidification (only PE recycling) impact categories. This study will help the policy makers to implement better plastic waste management plan.