Comparison of Feedstock Recycling and Alternative Treatment Methods for Household Packaging Waste. English Summary. Report
Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used in order to obtain a
rough comparison of the environmental benefits of feedstock recycling
with alternative treatment methods for plastic waste from households in
Norway.
The ranking between the different alternatives varies according to
which environmental impact is assessed. The exception to this is
incineration in a waste incinerator, which gives the least
environmental benefits for all of the environmental impacts assessed.
Feedstock recycling gives a marginally greater environmental benefit
than a high rate of mechanical recycling (49%) for global warming
potential. However, for the other environmental impact categories
analysed (acidification, eutrophication and energy use), feedstock
recycling has a clearly worse environmental profile than both a high
rate (49%) and a lower rate (21%) of mechanical recycling. Industrial
energy recovery as a replacement for coal gives the greatest
environmental benefit for the impact categories acidification and
eutrophication.
The most important assumptions used in the analyses of the different
treatment methods are described. However, if the results are to be
important for strategy work to find the most environmentally and
economically beneficial methods for recycling plastic, it is
recommended that follow-up studies are carried out in order to more
thoroughly analyse the systems and test the most sensitive assumptions
and parameters. This is particularly relevant for the assumption that
industrial energy recovery from plastic in cement production replaces
coal, as well as quality control of data and assumptions used for the
analysis of feedstock recycling in Germany.
With this background, as well as the EU proposal that feedstock
recycling shall not be counted as material recycling, it is recommended
that a more comprehensive study is carried out. This can be the basis
for important input to both strategic decisions for Plastretur and the
EU directive.