The Significance of Environmental
Attributes as Indicators of the Life Cycle
Environmental Impacts of Packaging andFood Service Ware
Final Report
Prepared byFranklin Associates, a Division of Eastern Research Group, for with the Oregon Department ofEnvironmental Quality, Materials Management Section
August 2018Materials Management
700 NE Multnomah
Portland, OR 97232
Phone:
503-229-5696
800-452-4011
Fax:
503-229-6762
Contact: Minal Mistry

DEQ is a leader in restoring,
maintaining and enhancing
the quality of Oregon’s air,land and water.

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of the Life Cycle
Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Jorge Vendries1, Troy R. Hawkins1, Troy Hottle1, Janet
Mosley1, David Allaway2, Peter Canepa2, Jonathan Rivin2,
and Minal Mistry2, *1Franklin Associates, a Division of Eastern Research Group2
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality*Corresponding author: minal.mistry@state.or.us

Cite as:Vendries J, Hawkins TR, Mosley J, Hottle T, Allaway D, Canepa P, Rivin J, Mistry M. ‘The
Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of the Life Cycle Environmental Impactsof Packaging and Food Service Ware.’ State of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Portland, Oregon. 2018.

Documents can be provided upon request in an alternate format for individuals with disabilities
or in a language other than English for people with limited English skills. To request a document
in another format or language, call DEQ in Portland at 503-229-5696, or toll-free in Oregon at 1800-452-4011, ext. 5696; or email deqinfo@deq.state.or.us.

Contents
Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Glossary of Terms ........................................................................................................................... 1
Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. 4
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Goal and Scope ........................................................................................................................... 7
The Life Cycle of Packaging ...................................................................................................... 8
The Life Cycle of Food Service Ware ........................................................................................ 8
Recycled Content ........................................................................................................................ 9
Recyclable ................................................................................................................................. 12
Biobased .................................................................................................................................... 14
Compostable ............................................................................................................................. 15Life Cycle Assessment .............................................................................................................. 16
Plastic Pollution in Marine Environments ................................................................................ 20
Method .......................................................................................................................................... 21
Literature Reviews .................................................................................................................... 21
Recycled Content ...................................................................................................................... 22
Recyclable ................................................................................................................................. 23
Biobased .................................................................................................................................... 24
Compostable ............................................................................................................................. 24
Food Service Ware .................................................................................................................... 25
Creating Comparisons from the Literature ............................................................................... 25
Packaging Results ......................................................................................................................... 27
Recycled Content ...................................................................................................................... 27
Recyclable ................................................................................................................................. 37
Biobased .................................................................................................................................... 53
Compostable ............................................................................................................................. 64
Food Service Ware Results ........................................................................................................... 78
Recycled Content ...................................................................................................................... 78
Recyclable ................................................................................................................................. 79
Biobased .................................................................................................................................... 83
Compostable ............................................................................................................................. 88
Summary ................................................................................................................................... 92
References ..................................................................................................................................... 94

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Glossary of Terms
Acidification
Potential

The acidifying potential resulting from acid rain caused by inorganic
air emissions.

Avoided Burden
Allocation (0/100)
MethodEnd-of-life allocation method that assigns the benefits of material
recycling to products recycled at end-of-life and does not give credits
for use of recycled content.

Biobased

Products derived from plants and other renewable agricultural,marine, and forestry materials (USDA 2018).

Board

Heavy, plant fiber-based, rigid material.

Chemical recycling

The process of reacting plastics to break them down into monomers
or other basic chemicals which can be repolymerized into newplastics or used for other purposes.

Comparative Toxic
Unit

Estimate of the potentially affected fraction of species integrated overtime and volume (Fantke 2017).

Compostable

Materials that degrade by biological processes to yield carbon
dioxide, water, inorganic compounds, and biomass at a rateconsistent with biodegradation of natural waste while leaving novisually distinguishable remnants or unacceptable levels of toxic
residues (ASTM International 2012).

CorrugatedCardboard

Material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat
linerboards.

Cradle-to-cradle

Term used in life cycle assessment to specify a life cycle systemboundary where the last step in the life cycle is a recycling process.

Cradle-to-gate

Term used in life cycle assessment to specify the system boundary ofa partial life cycle assessment including processes from resource
extraction (cradle) to the factory gate, before the product is delivered
to a consumer.

Cradle-to-grave

Term used in life cycle assessment to specify a life cycle systemboundary where the last step in the life cycle is disposal.

Downcycling

The recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower
quality and has a different function than the original material.

1

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Ecotoxicity

Ecosystem toxicity; the potential of chemicals to cause toxic effects
on organisms, often measured in terms of effects on aquatic species.
Effects are measured in terms of equivalency to the toxic effects of abenchmark environmental pollutant or in terms of comparative toxic
units (CTUe) when calculated using the USEtox LCIA method.

Endpoint impact

An effect on human health, ecosystem quality, or resource
availability directly experienced by a person or organism. Examples
of endpoint impacts commonly measured in LCA studies are humanhealth effects measured in disability adjusted life years, ecosystem
quality effects measured in partially disappeared species over an
area-year, or economic effects measured as the increased costassociated with extracting scarce resources.

Eutrophication
Potential

The potential of nutrient releases to cause harmful acceleration of
biological productivity in an ecosystem. Calculated at the midpointlevel in terms of benchmark nutrient pollutants such as nitrogen or
phosphate.

Fossil Energy
Depletion

Use of scarce fossil fuel resources measured in megajoules orkilograms oil equivalents.

Global Warming
Potential

The heat trapping capacity, or radiative forcing potential, ofgreenhouse gases and precursors. Calculated in terms of kilograms
carbon dioxide equivalents. Abbreviated as GWP in this report.

Particulate Matter
Formation Potential

Potential to form particulate matter leading to human respiratory
effects.

Human Health,
Toxicity

Increase in morbidity in the human population due to exposure tocarcinogenic substances or substances resulting in cancer and noncancer diseases measured in common toxic units.

Impact category

Class representing environmental issues of concern to which life
cycle inventory analysis results may be assigned (ISO 2006).
Examples include global warming potential, acidification potential,
eutrophication potential, human toxicity potential, etc.

Land UseArea of land occupied over time measured in units of area or
equivalency to land area of a certain type determined in terms of
biological productivity.

Life cycle assessment

Compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential
environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle(ISO 2006). Abbreviated to LCA in this report.

2

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Life cycle inventory

Phase of life cycle assessment involving the compilation andquantification of inputs and outputs for a product throughout its life
cycle (ISO 2006). Abbreviated to LCI in this report.

Life cycle impact
assessment

Phase of life cycle assessment aimed at understanding and evaluating
the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental
impacts for a product system throughout the life cycle of the product(ISO 2006). Abbreviated to LCIA in this report.

Midpoint impact

An indicator of an environmental effect at a level of the cause-effectchain between pollutant releases or resource use and the endpoint(Hiederer et al. 2011). Midpoint impacts are often used as the metricfor the results of LCA studies because they are suited for comparison
between options or scenarios while avoiding much of theuncertainty/variability associated with endpoint metrics. Global
warming potential, smog formation potential, acidification potential,and human toxicity potential are all examples of midpoint impacts.

Mineral Depletion
Potential

Depletion of minerals measured in terms of relative naturalavailability compared to iron in ore.

Ozone Depletion
Potential

Capacity of substances to deplete the stratospheric ozone, measured
for example in kilograms chlorofluorocarbon-11 equivalents.

Recyclable

The potential for a material to be recovered from the solid waste
stream to be made into a new product at the end of a product’s usefullife.

Recycled Content

The portion of materials used in a product that have been diverted
from the solid waste stream.

Recycled Content
Allocation (100/0)
MethodEnd-of-life allocation method that allocates the entire burden ofprimary material production to the first product while the burdens ofmaterial collection and processing for recycling are attributed to thesubsequent product.

Shared Burden
Allocation (50/50)
MethodEnd-of-life allocation method that assigns virgin production,
recycling, and final disposal burdens equally across all product life
cycles.

Smog Formation
Potential

The relative reactivity of substances that produce ground-level ozone
in the presence of sunlight measured in kilograms ozone equivalents.

Water Consumption

Volume of water removed from a watershed, measured by volume.

3

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Abbreviations
0/100

Avoided Burden Allocation Method

100/0

Recycled Content Allocation Method

50/50

Shared Burden Allocation Method

ASTM

American Section of the International Association for Testing
Materials

bio*

Biologically-Based, we have used “bio” preceding the acronyms forvarious plastic resins to indicate biologically-based resins

DEQ

Department of Environmental Quality

EOL

End-of-life

EPS

Expanded Polystyrene

FSW

Food Service Ware

FTC

Federal Trade Commission

GHG

Greenhouse Gas

GWP

Global Warming Potential

HDPE

High Density Polyethylene

LCA

Life Cycle Assessment

LCI

Life Cycle Inventory

LCIA

Life Cycle Impact Assessment

LDPE

Low Density Polyethylene

LUC

Land Use Change

MOPP

Metallized Oriented Polypropylene

MPLA

Metallized Polylactic Acid

MSW

Municipal Solid Waste

OPP

Oriented Polypropylene

PBAT

Polybutylene Adipate Terephthalate

PE

Polyethylene

4The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WarePET

Polyethylene Terephthalate

PHA

Polyhydroxyalkanoates

PIA

Poly(itaconic Acid)

PLA

Polylactic Acid

PP

Polypropylene

PTA

Purified Terephthalic Acid

PVC

Polyvinyl Chlorider*

Recycled, we have used “r” preceding the acronyms for various
plastic resins to indicate recycled resins

TPS

Thermoplastic Starch

XPS

Extruded Polystyrene

5The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareIntroduction
Over the last decade, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (Oregon DEQ) has
broadened its focus from solid waste management to materials management across the full life
cycle of materials and products, including but not limited to the management of materials as
wastes. Although Oregon has made significant strides towards conserving resources throughrecycling and minimizing environmental impacts of disposal through proper waste management
practices, overall waste generation, which dropped during the 2008 – 2009 recession, has
resumed its historic upward trend (Oregon DEQ 2017).
Packaging is often targeted in sustainable materials management strategies because it is generally
disposed after a single use and because of the large quantities of packaging entering themunicipal solid waste (MSW) stream each year (Oregon DEQ 2012; U.S. EPA 2015). In 2014,
Americans generated 76.7 million tons of packaging waste, comprising 30 percent of total MSW
generation by weight (U.S. EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery 2016).
Notwithstanding a packaging recycling rate of 51.5 percent, packaging still represents 22 percentof the MSW sent to landfills or incinerated (U.S. EPA Office of Resource Conservation andRecovery 2016). Similarly, packaging makes up 20-30 percent of business and household waste
in Oregon (Oregon DEQ 2017).
Yet while public concern and policy often focuses on the impacts of packaging waste, packaging
impacts the environment in many other ways as well. Packaging consumes raw materials andenergy for production and transport which in turn generates pollution, and disposal of packaging
in landfills or by incineration represents a loss of the resources they contain as well as further
pollution. While packaging plays an important role in minimizing waste by preventing damage to
products, improvements in packaging design and informed choices of packaging material havethe potential to considerably lower the environmental impacts of packaging.
This study considers four attributes commonly used as indicators of environmental benefits fromthe perspective of their effect on the life cycle environmental impacts. Considering the full life
cycle is important for sustainable materials management efforts addressing municipal waste.
Research has shown that waste management only contributes a small part of the full life cycle
environmental impacts of most goods. For example, waste management contributes only about 2
percent of annual U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA) GHG inventory (U.S. EPA 2017), while the full life cycle
impacts associated with the provision of food and consumer goods represents 42 percent of thenation’s annual GHG emissions (U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response2009). In Oregon, production, distribution, and disposal of consumer products made up 41
percent of the state’s 2015 consumption-related GHG emissions (Oregon DEQ 2012, 2018).
As noted in the “Materials Management in Oregon: 2050 Vision and Framework for Action”
report, Oregon DEQ is working to determine the most efficient ways to reduce environmental
impacts of products and materials by looking across their full life cycles (Oregon DEQ 2012).
DEQ’s use of life cycle thinking – considering environmental impacts across the full life cycle ofmaterials, as opposed to focusing narrowly on impacts from just one stage of the life cycle, such
6

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareas solid waste – dates back to the 1980s. DEQ’s first significant use of environmental life cycle
assessment (LCA), in 2004, evaluated 26 different options for shipping non-breakable items inan e-commerce order fulfillment center. This was followed by LCAs of drinking water delivery(2009) and single-family housing (2010). All three of these studies used LCA to quantitatively
assess the potential environmental impacts of a wide variety of materials. Importantly, thestudies describe impacts such as global warming potential (GWP), human toxicity potential, andecosystem toxicity potential.
Such evaluation of potential environmental and human health impacts stands in contrast to how
governments, individuals, and businesses have traditionally evaluated or considered theenvironmental impacts of materials. Historically, most selection or prioritization of materials forenvironmental purposes has relied on a series of attributes, which describe the sources orphysical characteristics of materials. Common attributes include having recycled or biobased
content or being recyclable or compostable.
It is widely believed that these attributes align with materials that have reduced overall impact on
the environment. However, each of the DEQ studies mentioned above provided examples thatchallenged this popular wisdom. For example, DEQ’s e-commerce packaging assessment
identified that lightweight shipping bags – even if made from mixed materials such as
paper/plastic blends – often resulted in lower environmental burdens than paperboard boxes,
even if the shipping bags were difficult to recycle and contained limited recycled materials.
Similar inconsistencies between attributes and impacts were found in other studies, leading DEQ
to question whether these popular attributes reliably and consistently point in the direction ofmaterials that have lower impacts to the environment, as is widely assumed.

Goal and Scope
The goal of this work is to review LCA studies of packaging and food service ware (FSW) to
determine whether it is appropriate to use the material attributes recycled content, recyclable,
biobased, and compostable to infer environmental benefits. This literature review assesses theconditions under which each attribute is directly correlated, inversely correlated, or uncorrelatedwith environmental benefits when viewed across the entire life cycle.
The products and attributes included in the study were selected based on their role in manysustainable materials management strategies and the availability of sufficient LCA studies. A
preliminary literature search was performed prior to the formal literature review to assess theavailability of LCA studies related to products and attributes commonly discussed in the field ofsustainable materials management. While the focus of this study is the United States, LCA
studies are included regardless of their geographic scope to provide a broad basis forconclusions. The potential effect of geography on study results is considered in the interpretationof findings. The metrics included in the analysis are energy, water, and land use and a series ofcommonly used life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) midpoint impact indicators. It should be
noted that impacts associated with litter or marine debris are not included since methods toassess these impacts in LCA studies are not available. Also, solid waste mass or volume are not
metrics typically reported by LCA studies as the impacts associated with waste management areincluded in other metrics such as land use, GWP, and ecosystem toxicity.
7

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

The Life Cycle of Packaging
The life cycle of packaging, as shown in Figure 1, includes raw material extraction, primarymaterial production, packaging production, distribution, use, and end-of-life consisting ofrecycling, reuse, or disposal. Litter refers to uncollected releases to the environment produced
from packaging, whether on land or water. Often comparative LCAs omit parts of the life cyclethat are identical across comparisons. For this reason, the environmental burdens related to the
product contained in the package may or may not be included in LCAs examining packaging.
This will affect the percent changes in impact metrics associated with packaging and foodservice ware scenarios. In general, the product itself contributes more to the overall life cycle
impacts than the packaging (Hanssen 1998). If the product is included within the systemboundary, changes in recycled content or end-of-life treatment of the packaging can haveminimal impact on overall impact results. If packaging is examined on its own, raw material
production usually contributes the greatest proportion of impacts to the overall life cycle ofpackaging for all results categories typically included in LCAs (Hanssen 1998). Packaging
production may have substantial environmental burdens related to energy use from the
manufacturing process. The distribution phase includes transport to the product packaging
location and to retail and tends to contribute most to acidification and smog formation impacts.
In all cases, the weight of the product being packaged is factored into the calculation of theburdens for distribution to retail locations even if production and processing of the product is
excluded. Typically, the process of filling the packaging with the product and the product use
phase are not considered in the life cycle of packaging unless there is an aspect of using one typeof material for packaging as opposed to another that results in differences in the filling or use
phase for the product. End-of-life is an area of significant focus for single-use packaging since itis discarded after delivering the product to the consumer and can involve a substantial amount ofmaterial.

RecycleResource
Extraction

Raw Material
Production

Packaging
Production

Distribution

Use

CompostCollection /Sorting

Litter/Releases tothe Environment

Fertilizer
Production

Landfill

Incineration

EnergyRecoveryFigure 1.The life cycle of single-use packaging and food service ware.

The Life Cycle of Food Service WareThe life cycle of FSW follows the same general stages as the life cycle for packaging, from raw
material extraction through to disposal, as shown in Figure 1, but each stage can varyconsiderably based on the specific product. FSW products include items such as knives, forks,
spoons, cups, straws, dishes, wrappers, trays and tray liners, and clamshells and similar
containers when used for takeaway food consumption. Bottles for liquid consumption are notnecessarily takeaway food items, and thus are considered as packaging, not FSW. The FSW
8The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareproducts included in this report are made from various plastic resins and wood fiber. Results ofthe studies included in this review suggest that most of the environmental impacts from FSW
products occur during the feedstock production and manufacturing phases, particularly forbiobased FSW, though transportation can sometimes produce significant emissions for the GWP
and acidification impact categories, depending on the distances traveled (Vercalsteren andcolleagues, 2006). Despite a wide range of use cases for FSW products: restaurants, takeout,
schools, hospitals, prisons, contract catering, large outdoor events, festivals, employee breakrooms, and home use either for everyday use or parties and special events; the system boundary
for most LCAs of FSW products do not provide much detail regarding the use case considered.
These different uses can affect their environmental footprint by influencing which end-of-life
processing a specific FSW product undergoes. For example, the composition of waste streams
are more easily controlled in contained venues, such as sporting events, which can contribute to
the efficiency of recycling or composting logistics (Hottle and colleagues, 2015). Additionally,some types of FSW products are more likely to be reused than general packaging, as they can becleaned and reused relatively easily. Because of this, reusable FSW is better represented in theliterature than for other types of packaging.

Recycled Content
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines recycled content as the portion of materials
used in a product that have been diverted from the solid waste stream. Recycled content isfurther distinguished as pre-consumer or post-consumer where post-consumer recycled content isfrom material recovered after product use by the consumer and pre-consumer recycled content issourced directly from manufacturing process waste.1 The FTC notes that in order to claim preconsumer material as recycled content, it must be shown that the material would have otherwise
been managed as solid waste (FTC, 2012). Therefore, scrap that can be reused in the same
manufacturing process that produced it should not be counted as recycled content.
When material from one product is recycled and then incorporated into a new product asrecycled content, a decision must be made on how to allocate the burdens of virgin materials
production, collection and recycling of the material, and final material disposal across the life
cycles of the two or more products (Weidema 2000). The recycled content method, avoided
burden method, and 50/50 method are three commonly used recycling allocation methods used in
attributional LCAs (Toniolo et al. 2017; Johnson, McMillan, and Keoleian 2013). All three ofthese methods were represented in the studies reviewed in this project.

1Pre-consumer recycled content may also be referred to as post-industrial recycled content, external regrind, andprompt scrap.

9The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Recycled Content or 100/0 Approach
Life Cycle #1

Life Cycle #2

Life Cycle #3

Primary
Material
Production

Product
Manufactureand Use

Product
Manufactureand UseRecycleProduct
Manufactureand UseRecycleProduct
Disposal

Avoided Burden or 0/100 Approach
Life Cycle #1

Life Cycle #2

Life Cycle #3

Primary
Material
Production

Product
Manufactureand Use

Product
Manufactureand UseRecycleburdenburdencreditProduct
Manufactureand UseRecycleAvoidedPrimary
Material Prod.

creditAvoidedPrimary
Material Prod.

Product
Disposal

Shared Burden or 50/50 Approach
Life Cycle #1

Life Cycle #2

Life Cycle #3

Primary
Material
Production
1/n primary
production
Product
Manufactureand Use
1/n material
disposal

1/n primary
production

Recycle1/n primary
production

Product
Manufactureand UseRecycleProduct
Manufactureand Use
1/n material
disposal

1/n material
disposal

Product
Disposal

Figure 2. Recycling Allocation Methods Used in Life Cycle Assessment Studies.

10

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareThe recycled content method, also referred to as the cut-off or 100/0 method allocates the entire
burden of primary material production to the first product while the burdens of material
collection and processing for recycling are attributed to the subsequent product (see Figure 2)(Toniolo et al. 2017). End-of-life disposal burdens are assigned to the product system fromwhich the material is ultimately disposed, and no credits are granted for energy recovery
resulting from disposal of materials.
The avoided burden approach, also known as system expansion, end-of-life-recycling,
recyclability substitution, or 0/100 (Toniolo et al. 2017), assigns the benefits of material
recycling to products recycled at end-of-life and does not give credits for use of recycled content.
The first product, when recycled, is credited for the avoided burdens of virgin material
production for the form in which the material is used in the second product. The avoided material
credit may not correspond exactly to the form in which the material was used in the first product.
For example, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles made of high viscosity food-grade PET
may be recycled into amorphous PET and used in the second system without restoring thematerial to the same viscosity and level of decontamination as in its first use. In this case, thematerial credit would be based on avoiding the production of amorphous PET, a ‘down-cycling’of the original high viscosity food-grade PET. The secondary product would then be associatedwith production impacts equal to the material credit of the first product, and is eligible for amaterial credit if it is also recycled (FTC, 2012).
The shared burden or 50/50 method assigns virgin material production, recycling, and final
disposal burdens equally across the first and second products (Nicholson et al. 2009). When amaterial is recycled across many product life cycles, the virgin material production, recycling,
and final disposal burdens are divided equally across all product life cycles.
The difficulty of selecting a method for assigning impacts associated with recycled materials is
compounded by several factors. First, that the number of product life cycles in which a material
is used is not well understood and is also highly variable depending on the fate of the product.
For example, old corrugated containers, a standard term for recovered corrugated board, can berecycled back into corrugated medium or linerboard (used to make new corrugated containers),
but the rate at which old containers are recycled varies depending on whether the containers areused in commercial settings (such as grocery stores, where the recycling rate is high) or inhouseholds (where the recycling rate is lower). Second, the wide range of alternate uses for somerecycled packaging material can make the material difficult to track. Third, the properties ofcertain materials change as they are recycled, and this limits their use to different products asthey progress from one life cycle to the next. Paper products, for example, can only be recycled alimited number of times because the wood fibers break down and at some point become too short
to be useful (Ekvall 2000a). Metals and plastics, while infinitely recyclable in theory, decline inquality as they become contaminated with other materials over time; examples include
plasticizers, coatings, dyes, and alloying agents (Johnson, McMillan, and Keoleian 2013).
While statistics are available on recycling rates for certain materials/product types, data are notavailable to quantify the average number of product lifetimes in which a material is used.
Therefore, an LCA practitioner could only reasonably predict a material’s use in two to three11The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareproduct lifetimes – for a product using virgin material that is recycled at the end of the product’s
useful life, the material will be incorporated into at least one more product before disposal, andfor a product with recycled content, the practitioner knows that there was at least one prior use of
the material and can assume one more use if the product being modeled is recycled at end-of-life.
The recycled content approach favors products with high levels of recycled content because
recycled material comes into the system free of virgin production burdens. Conversely, theavoided burden method results in lower impacts for products with high recycling rates. The
avoided burden method is preferred by the metals industry as the supply of recycled metals is
limited due to the long service life of many products utilizing metals. The metals industry
contends that the benefits of material recycling should be attributed to recycling at the end-of-life
to encourage recycling to increase the amount of secondary metals available (Atherton 2007;
Johnson, McMillan, and Keoleian 2013; World Steel Association 2011). The avoided burden
approach is also employed in US EPA's WARM tool, which is widely used by recycling andsolid waste professionals in the US.
In addition to these methods addressing post-consumer recycled content, allocation of preconsumer recycled content, material that has not been used in a prior product life cycle, is a
special case. In general, pre-consumer recycled content is either assigned the full impacts ofvirgin material production or considered a co-product of the original product’s manufacturing
process where burdens of virgin material production for the scrap could be allocated between theoriginal and subsequent product on a mass or economic basis. Note that this treatment conflicts
with the FTC definition of recycled content as being material diverted from a waste stream, as awaste would not generally be considered a co-product.
In the presentation of packaging results below, comparisons between packaging with recycledcontent and packaging of different material with less or no recycled content are provided using
all studies and then again using only studies that use the recycled content (100/0) allocation
method.

Recyclable
Recyclability is the potential for a material to be remade into a new product at the end of a priorproduct’s useful life. The FTC defines a recyclable product as one that can be collected,
separated, or otherwise recovered from a waste stream through a recycling program for use in the
manufacturing of a new item. The FTC also stipulates that a claim of recyclability can only bemade in markets where the recycling program is available to at least 60 percent of thecommunities or consumers (FTC, 2012). This requirement recognizes the importance ofcollection and reprocessing services in addition to the physical characteristics of the material.
Promoting the availability of recycling services is a focus of many waste and sustainable
materials management programs. For example, in Oregon all municipalities with at least 4,000
people are required to provide recycling services, which the State strictly defines in terms ofvarious collection programs, drop-offs, and educational programs in addition to material types(Oregon Revised Statute 459A).
When considering the benefits of recyclable packaging and FSW, it is important to represent
accurately the portion of the material that is recycled. A few key factors play in to actual
12

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warerecovery rates of materials. The availability of collection services and drop off locations forrecyclable material is the first consideration that determines the fraction of the material diverted
from landfilling or incineration. Once collected, materials are transported, sorted, cleaned,
reprocessed, and finally sold to make new products. Some portion of the collected material canbe lost in these steps, decreasing the fraction recycled. For example, mixed recyclables
contaminated by food waste, broken glass, or other non-recyclable items are often separated byrecycling facilities and sent to landfills or incinerators. Some materials, particularly recoveredmaterials sold offshore, may require additional sorting and cleaning steps to remove
contamination to prepare them for various product manufacturing steps. For these reasons, LCA
studies addressing the benefits of recyclability should account for the losses in material
collection and the inputs required for the recycling process.
The benefits of recyclable packaging and FSW also depend on the market for recycled material.
Which materials are likely to be recycled often depends on the cost of collection, separation,
processing, and transportation being lower than the market price for the secondary (waste)materials, along with any savings that may be realized because of diverting the materials awayfrom other disposal methods, such as savings in landfill tipping fees. In other words, recycling
must be an economically viable undertaking, or it must otherwise be subsidized. Even whencollection and recycling services are available, if the market for post-consumer material issaturated, additional materials depress prices and can potentially cause material to go unused andultimately disposed. In a market consistently constrained by the availability of secondary
material, it is more likely for a product to be recyclable than to use recycled content. This isbecause the secondary material from one product could be used in another product if it were notused in the product at hand, and secondary material is likely to have a higher price than in an
unconstrained market. In a market where there is a surplus of secondary material and few
products that use it, it is more likely for a product to have recycled content than to be recyclable,
as the secondary material is likely to have a lower price than in a constrained market. In LCA
studies, market effects are reflected in the allocation of impacts between primary and secondary
materials described in the previous section. The recycled content or 100/0 method is appropriate
in a market saturated with secondary materials while the avoided burden or 0/100 method isappropriate where there is high unmet demand for secondary material (Frees 2008; Gala, Raugei,
and Fullana-i-Palmer 2015; Geyer et al. 2016; Zink, Geyer, and Startz 2016). However, market
conditions are often unknown or unavailable to LCA practitioners considering products that arerecycled.
Few LCA studies with quantitative results explicitly analyze all the factors mentioned above
when considering recyclable packaging. To expand the pool of LCA studies in the review,studies that analyzed one or more of these characteristics, such as quantitative environmental
results for varying recycling rates for packaging materials were included. Studies that use the0/100 and 50/50 allocation methods to evaluate recyclability are also included in this report. The
0/100 or avoided burden approach is included because it is used for allocating the life cycle
benefits of avoided production of primary material when materials undergo recycling at the endof-life (EOL), assuming there is primary material displacement. The 50/50 method is included
because it is a recommended approach when secondary material markets are unknown andmaterial displacement data are unavailable for LCA studies (Ekvall 2000b; Zink, Geyer, andStartz 2016). Comparisons that use the recycled content (100/0) allocation method are not
13

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareincluded in this section as it assigns no benefit to recyclability at the end-of-life of packaging
materials.

Biobased
Biobased packaging is defined as packaging made from renewable feedstocks that can bereplenished as they are used. The most common feedstocks are currently plant-based, utilizing
fermentation processes via starch or sugars, but can also be a direct product of the metabolism ofa plant or be generated from alternative biological sources like fungi, animals, or organic wastes(Gerngross and Slater 2000; Haneef et al. 2017; Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2013; Kendall 2012;
Koller et al. 2013; Kurdikar et al. 2000; Schiffman 2013). Biobased materials are commonly
considered beneficial because it is assumed that their feedstocks do not deplete reserves of nonrenewable resources such as petroleum, natural gas, and mineral deposits. In addition, plantderived biobased materials are considered beneficial because they offer a greenhouse gas benefit
due to the carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere during plant growth. This study was
conducted in part to test these kinds of assumptions and understand the differences between
fossil and biobased production paradigms. We identified studies related to biobased, renewable
packaging or FSW and will refer to these materials collectively as biobased throughout thisdocument.
It is worth noting that “biobased” does not necessarily imply biodegradability or compostability
and that some biobased materials neither readily degrade nor can be composted. Not all
packaging materials included in this review are 100 percent biobased either. Many biobased
plastic products require the addition of plasticizers and stabilizers to meet performancerequirements and, as in the case of Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle®, there are some products where themajority of feedstocks are not biobased (Tabone et al. 2010; Weiss et al. 2012; Yates and Barlow2013). Depending on the material type, a biobased product may or may not be compostable,
biodegradable, and/or recyclable at the end of the product’s useful life. Some products have beendeveloped specifically to provide compostable options for packaging, single-use, and nondurable goods, including compostable paperboard materials, many biobased plastics, likepolylactic acid (PLA) and thermoplastic starch (TPS). Some traditionally fossil-based resins, e.g.
polyethylene (PE) and PET, can be manufactured using biobased feedstocks with an identicalchemical structure and functional properties which can leverage existing manufacturing andwaste infrastructure, but neither the fossil-based nor biobased options are necessarily degradable
or compostable.
This literature review considers the environmental impacts of biobased packaging materials and
FSW compared to their fossil-based counterparts. The initial search for biobased materials
included generic terms like ‘biobased’ and ‘renewable’ to identify any studies that fall within thescope of the review. All the materials evaluated in the relevant studies fall into three distinct
categories, those made from wood, paper, and biobased plastics. In addition to the high-level
review of biobased options, material- and study-specific examples are highlighted based on an
in-depth evaluation of the available literature and are available in the Supporting Information B.

14

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Compostable
Compostable materials are those that degrade by biological processes to yield CO2, water,
inorganic compounds, and biomass at a rate consistent with biodegradation of natural waste
while leaving no visually distinguishable remnants or unacceptable levels of toxic residues(ASTM International, 2012). In the context of plastic/polymer packaging materials,
compostability is governed by international standards (ASTM International, 2012, 2017;
European Committee for Standardization, 2000). While organics composting can beaccomplished in a backyard setting, nearly all packaging marketed as compostable does notbiodegrade in such settings, instead requiring an appropriately scaled composting facility toprovide the conditions required to meet the expected levels of degradation in a reasonable timeframe. Moreover, these facilities require that materials used as input for the compost process
have limited contamination from non-compostable materials. Depending on their use,compostable packaging may be exposed to contaminants that limit its ability to be composted insuch facilities without a previous screening or washing process. These requirements differentiatecompostable packaging materials from biodegradable ones, which usually do not have facility or
device requirements, and may biodegrade in environments that do not meet the specificconditions required to create compost. Unless otherwise noted, the studies included in thisreview assessed the impacts of industrial scale composting for compostable packaging.
Materials used in the production of compostable packaging include petroleum based polymers(e.g. Polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate or PBAT); biobased polymers such as PLA and TPS;
and blends of petroleum and biobased polymers, such as PBAT+PLA (Ecovio®) (Kijchavengkul
and Auras 2008). Additionally, paper and paperboard materials are compostable and can also be
used for packaging, as they are flexible and can be easily shaped. However, paperboard is often
permeable to liquids and oils and have to be coated, laminated or otherwise amended with barriermaterials to ensure they can be used effectively as packaging (Farmer 2013). This may introduce
non-compostable materials or additional toxins to paperboard packaging, which may prevent the
packaging from being accepted at industrial composting facilities.
It is important to distinguish the composting process, which is an aerobic process, fromanaerobic digestion. While composting can sometimes be referred to as “aerobic composting”,
and digestion can sometimes yield compost as an output, the processes involved are different
enough that they can be used for different purposes, such as biogas production from anaerobic
digestion that can be used to offset other energy demand. Anaerobic digestion is not a focus of
this review, but it is included in cases where individual studies compared the environmental
impacts of both digestion and composting of the same material.
In the LCA studies reviewed, the main benefits of composting as a waste management method
are usually associated with the use of the compost as a replacement for agricultural use of fossilbased fertilizers and peat. Most studies assign environmental credits to the compost for the
avoided production of these items based on the amount of nutrients included in the compost.
However, there is little consensus in the literature regarding how to allocate these credits, withsome studies assigning few credits to compost resulting only from packaging due to therelatively low nutrient content of the packaging materials. On the other hand, compostable
packaging is usually assigned the burdens associated with the production of their feedstock

15

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warematerials, such as biomass production for biobased packaging, or petroleum extraction for
PBAT, as well as the impacts related to the composting process itself.

Life Cycle Assessment
LCA is a rigorous and standardized approach for quantifying the environmental impacts of a
product (or service) across its entire life cycle, including the extraction or harvesting of raw
materials from the earth through material processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, and endof-life. When done properly, an LCA should quantify all relevant environmental flows such as
releases to the environment as well as the use of resources such as land, water, fossil fuels, andminerals. The International Standards Organization’s (ISO) 14040 series of standards govern andprovide guidance for those performing LCA studies. LCA studies begin with a clearly definedgoal and scope, which includes the definition of a functional unit which serves as the basis forany comparisons made in the LCA and/or for the presentation of results. The functional unit
ensures an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, two packaging options might be comparedbased on their ability to deliver a certain quantity of product. When necessary the system is
expanded to include relevant inputs outside the packaging itself. For example, a comparison
between a half gallon of ready to serve orange juice and frozen orange juice concentrate would
also include the water and reusable pitcher used to prepare the juice from concentrate. And, ofcourse, the impacts of producing the reusable pitcher would be allocated across many uses over
its lifetime. Thus, although the basic concept of an LCA is somewhat simple, in practiceresolving interactions between systems and comparing across different products is quite
complex. Fortunately, a large body of research provides robust methods for performing LCA
studies.
The process of performing an LCA study is often divided into the life cycle inventory and life
cycle impact assessment stages. In the life cycle inventory (LCI) stage, the practitioner prepares
an inventory of releases to the environment and resource inputs from the environment involvedin the life cycle of the product or service being assessed. LCA models are constructed of a seriesof unit processes, and releases and resource inputs are tracked for each unit process. Unit
processes are also connected to one another when the output of one is used as an input toanother. For example, iron ore concentrate from iron mining, coal from coal mining, and traintransport would all be inputs to steel production. When creating an LCA model, typically thepractitioner creates a series of custom unit process datasets for the unit processes that contributemost significantly to the results for their system of interest. These unit processes are referred toas the foreground unit processes. When creating foreground unit processes, the practitioner takes
into consideration the location where each process occurs, and the technologies used. For
example, the electricity grid in the northwest U.S. would reflect a higher percentage ofhydroelectricity than the electricity grid in certain Midwestern states for example which rely
heavily on coal. The supply chains for less significant inputs as well as those for common andstandardized inputs such as grid electricity, PET resin, or aluminum are often represented by offthe-shelf background datasets such as ecoinvent, GaBi, or the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory. The
foreground and background datasets are brought together in an LCA tool such as SimaPro,
openLCA, GaBi, or Umberto to resolve the connections between unit processes into theinventory of releases to the environment and resources from the environment associated with theprovision of the functional unit.
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The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) involves calculating the potential environmental impacts
associated with each release to the environment and resource from the environment included in
the life cycle inventory. Typically, life cycle impact assessment is performed using generalized
LCIA methods developed for characterizing various impacts in a given region. Examples ofcommonly used LCIA methods include the U.S. EPA’s Tool for the Reduction and Assessmentof Chemical and Environmental Impacts (TRACI), ReCiPe, and IMPACT 2002/IMPACT
World+. These LCIA methods are a collection of models and estimation methods used tocharacterize various impacts. For example, both the TRACI and IMPACT World+ LCIA
methods adopt the USEtox model to characterize human health and ecosystem quality impacts.
In practice, LCIA methods are a collection of characterization factors describing the impact of agiven release or resource input. For example, GWP is often characterized in terms of kilograms
carbon dioxide equivalents, thus the release of one kilogram of carbon dioxide causes an impact
of one kilogram carbon dioxide equivalent and the release of one kilogram of methane causes animpact of 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (IPCC 2014).
Impacts can be tracked at the midpoint or endpoint level. Endpoint impacts are considered theultimate impacts of interest, such as human health and ecosystem quality effects, measured inquality/disability adjusted life years (QALY/DALY) and partially disappeared species-square
meter-years respectively. In some cases, resource scarcity is also tracked at the endpoint level interms of the increased cost of providing energy following depletion of more easily available
resources. Midpoint impacts are metrics defined along the cause-effect chain between releases
and resource inputs and the endpoint impacts. Examples of midpoint impacts include GWP
measured in kilograms carbon dioxide equivalents, particulate matter formation potential(leading to human respiratory effects) measured in kilograms particulate matter 2.5 (<2.5
microns) equivalents, acidification potential measured in kilograms sulfur dioxide equivalents,and human toxicity measured in common toxic units, a metric specifically developed forcomparing toxicity in the context of LCA studies. While endpoint metrics reflect the actual
impacts of interest, midpoint metrics are often reported in LCA studies because they relate moreclosely to the releases and resource inputs tracked in the life cycle inventory and can be reportedwith more certainty. Estimating endpoint impacts from midpoint impacts requires additional
assumptions regarding uncertain effects and effects occurring over longer periods of time. For
example, while estimating the radiative forcing effect of various greenhouse gases can beaccomplished using atmospheric modeling, estimating specific human health and ecosystem
quality effects of a warming climate involves more uncertainty.
In this study, we consider twelve midpoint impact categories commonly tracked in LCA studies.
Although different LCIA methods are used to estimate these impacts across LCA studies, thedefinition of each midpoint is consistent, and the differences in approaches are reflective of thefact that LCIA methods improve as researchers develop them over time. The twelve midpoint
impacts tracked in this review are as follows.
Midpoints calculated based on environmental releases
 Global Warming Potential - The heat trapping capacity (radiative forcing potential) ofgreenhouse gases (GHGs) and their precursors. Calculated in terms of kilograms carbon
dioxide equivalents.
17

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware










Eutrophication Potential - Enrichment of an ecosystem with nutrients that accelerate
biological productivity. Eutrophication is characterized separately for freshwater andmarine ecosystems as freshwater ecosystems are more frequently phosphorus limited
while marine ecosystems are more frequently nitrogen limited. Calculated in terms of thenitrogen or phosphorous content of releases available to ecosystems and measured in
kilograms nitrogen equivalents or kilograms phosphorus equivalents.
Particulate Matter Formation Potential - Potential to form particulate matter leading tohuman respiratory effects.
Smog Formation Potential - The relative reactivity of substances that produce groundlevel ozone in the presence of sunlight measured in kilograms ground-level ozone
equivalents.
Human Toxicity - Increase in morbidity in the total human population due to exposure tocarcinogenic substances or substances resulting in non-cancer diseases measured incommon toxic units or toxic chemical equivalency.
Ecosystem Toxicity - Potential of chemicals to cause toxic effects on aquatic species.
The models used to estimate ecosystem toxicity typically consider chemical fate,transport, and exposure of organisms. Measured in terms of common toxic units or toxic
chemical equivalency.2
Acidification Potential - The acidifying potential resulting from acid rain caused byinorganic air emissions measured in sulfur dioxide equivalents.
Ozone Depletion Potential - Capacity of substances to deplete the stratospheric ozone,
measured in kilograms chlorofluorocarbon-11 equivalents.

Midpoint indicators calculated based on resource use Land Use/Occupation - Area of land occupied over time, characterized in terms of
biological productivity. Measured in terms of area equivalent to an area of land of
specified biological productivity.
 Water Consumption – Water withdrawals less water returned to the same watershed,measured by volume.
 Fossil Energy Depletion – Amount of fossil energy extracted from the earth, measured
in terms of equivalency to a reference fossil energy source, typically oil equivalents, interms of relative abundance in the earth’s crust.
 Mineral Depletion – Amount of scarce minerals extracted from the earth, measured interms of equivalency to a reference mineral, for example iron equivalents, in terms of
relative abundance in the earth’s crust.
The strength of LCA for comparing the relative benefits of packaging and food service ware
options, is that it is an approach that has been developed over time for comparing options basedon their environmental effects. There are many methodological issues which have been
extensively discussed in the LCA literature. The previous section described various approaches
that are used for assigning the impacts of recycled materials to their downstream and upstream

2

Note than the impacts of plastic debris, fragments, and degradation products on marine ecosystems are notexplicitly tracked in the ecosystem toxicity impact assessment methods used in LCA studies. Marine debris isdiscussed in more detail in the following section.

18

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warelife cycles. More generally, assigning impacts to multiple products of a single unit process isanother issue that commonly arises in LCA. Following the ISO guidance, first multi-output unit
processes should be further detailed to assign the impacts of subprocesses to specific products
wherever possible. When it is not possible to separate impacts, the ISO 14044 standard
recommends expanding the system to avoid the need for allocation. For example, in the case of aprocess using electricity from another process that also produces low-grade steam used forheating, the electricity might be credited with the avoided impact of the combustion of natural
gas which would have otherwise been used to meet the heat demand. In other cases, practitioners
will allocate impacts across multiple outputs according to their mass, energy content, ormonetary value. The ecoinvent and GaBi background datasets used in LCA models have also
been refined over time. These datasets provide the building blocks that can be used to represent
almost any system. For many common and environmentally intense processes, ecoinvent and
GaBi provide representations of various technologies and production in different locations due todifferences in technologies, electricity sources, transport modes and distances, etc. Similarly,
LCIA methods have been developed and improved over time and are customized to reflect, forexample, North American or European conditions. LCIA methods have further benefitted fromthe activities of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative which have considered various impact
assessment methods and produced consensus-based approaches such as the USEtox model forassessing human health and ecosystem quality effects.
As a result, LCA is very good at providing quantitative results for comparisons between products
or technologies. For this review, we can compare quantitative results across the twelve impact
categories previously described. LCA studies provide a clear description of the functional unit
and the scope of the system considered in the study. We can understand something about thequality of the results based on the description of the foreground processes, background datasets,
and impact assessment methods. The LCIA methods used in LCA studies have been well thought
through and are reflective of the actual environmental impacts of interest.
A challenge in a review such as the one conducted here is the complexity of LCA models and thelarge amount of data used to populate them. As a result, it is challenging for an LCA practitioner
to report and a reader to comprehend all the data and details involved in the calculation of an
LCA result. For this reason, this literature review is limited to comparisons presented in a given
study. We do not consider comparisons across LCA studies. Similarly, we are limited in ourability to track and attribute all the system details and modeling decisions to the various results.
The comparisons between packaging and food service ware options with the attributes
considered in this study and their conventional counterparts are affected by the locations where
the packaging and FSW are produced, the technologies used, and other factors. Relatively new
systems such as biobased plastics and compostable packaging could potentially be improved
with new technologies such as cellulosic feedstocks, larger-scale production facilities, improved
logistics, and combined collection/composting with nutrient-rich food waste. The findingspresented here reflect the quality of the LCA studies included in the review. Presumably peerreviewed LCA studies should provide reliable results, however in practice there has been somevariability in the quality of published LCA studies. To address this, we provide Supporting
Information to help the reader understand the underlying studies, data, and comparisons uponwhich our findings are drawn.

19

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Plastic Pollution in Marine Environments
Plastic pollution in marine environments has received much attention (Cózar et al. 2014;
Lebreton et al. 2018; Thompson et al. 2009; Wong, Green, and Cretney 1974). In a recent
assessment, Jambeck and colleagues (2015) estimated that 5 to 13 million metric tons of plastic
entered oceans in 2010. Plastics are persistent in the marine environment and cause harm towildlife through ingestion, disrupting ecosystems and potentially endangering species such as sea
birds and turtles (Derraik 2002). Plastics also break down over time creating fragments which are
more easily ingested and which expose marine species to toxic degradation products (Rochman2015).
When not properly managed, single-use packaging and food service ware contribute to themarine debris problem (Geyer, Jambeck, and Law 2017). Schmidt and colleagues (2017)assessed the flow of plastic debris from rivers to the ocean and found that 10 large watersheds, 8in Asia and 2 in Africa, with large populations and insufficient waste management services
contribute over 90 percent of the plastic mass released to the ocean annually. This finding
supports Jambeck and colleagues’ (2015) estimate based on waste generation and management
practices that estimates significant quantities of plastic waste entering oceans from countries withlarge populations, significant consumption, and significant amounts of mismanaged waste. The
top 20 countries contributing to waste plastic in oceans are Asian and African countries with thenotable exceptions of Brazil (#16) and the U.S. (#20). While most countries earned a spot in thelist due to a high percentage of mismanaged waste, the U.S. contributed 40-110 thousand metrictons of plastic marine debris due to a combination of high per capita plastic waste, one-third
kilogram per person per day, and a comparatively higher rate of waste management at 98
percent, as opposed to many other countries in the list with much lower waste management rates,
generally between 10 and 40 percent.
It is important to recognize that the amount of plastic entering marine environments attributable
to U.S. consumption may be larger than indicated by the above estimates reflecting the directflow of plastic waste to oceans from the U.S. Most of the materials collected via recycling
programs in North America and Europe, particularly plastics, are exported. These materials
typically undergo additional sorting and processing at the importing country where solid waste
management systems are poorly developed and lack controls for leakages into the environment.
This step in the global secondary material exchange could indirectly contribute significant
plastics to marine debris. Similarly, the acceptance of compostable materials such as food service
ware in some organic waste collection systems results in contamination with non-compostable
plastics by generators who may not successfully distinguish acceptable from non-acceptablematerials. While many industrial composters attempt to screen non-compostable plastics from
inputs and/or un-composted plastic fragments from finished compost, plastic contamination offinished compost is a growing concern, and is another vector by which plastics may find theirway into freshwater and marine environments. Thus, while Jambeck and colleagues (2015) findthat the direct flow of plastic waste to oceans from the U.S. is less than one percent of the annual
amount of plastic waste entering oceans, it is possible that leakage of plastic waste exported fromthe U.S. for recycling and the contamination of compost produced from the U.S.’ compostable
packaging and food service ware with non-compostable plastic contribute amounts in addition to
those reported by Jambeck and colleagues.
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The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
For the purposes of this review, the issue of plastic marine debris does not play a significant role.
This is primarily because we are focused on packaging and food service ware systems in the
U.S., where most of the discarded materials are managed through “conventional” waste
management, taken to mean landfilling, incineration, and recycling as currently practiced in the
U.S. (The Economist 2018). Plastic becomes marine debris due to mismanagement, throughindividual behavior or inadequate collection and treatment infrastructure services, rather thanbecause of the choice of management practice. In other words, any of the waste management
practices discussed in this report, recycling, landfilling, incineration, or composting, may reduce
plastic marine debris by reducing litter or informal management practices. Additionally, plastic
marine debris is not a metric that is typically tracked in LCA studies and was not explicitly
discussed in the studies reviewed here.
It should be noted that the attributes examined here could marginally influence the release ofplastic to oceans. For example, the creation of a market for secondary materials could serve to
reduce incentives for the improper management of these materials. Keeping plastic packaging
and food service ware out of landfills could reduce unintentional losses to wind from uncovered
landfills, although these losses should be low for properly managed landfills. Compostable
packaging and food service ware which is biodegradable in the natural environment would
reduce the lifetime of packaging and food service ware litter in the environment. While these
topics were outside the scope of this review, they offer interesting topics for future research.

MethodLiterature Reviews
The literature review was conducted in three phases: (1) literature search, (2) review andidentification of potentially relevant search results, and (3) in-depth review of selected relevant
articles. Given the rapid development in LCA methodology over the last few decades, a decision
was made to limit this literature review to studies published in the years 2000 to 2017.
The first round of the literature search focused on five journals known to publish high quality
LCA studies – International Journal of LCA, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Journal of Cleaner
Production, Environmental Science & Technology, and Packaging Technology and Science.
Additional literature reviewed included dissertations and known packaging LCA studies
published by Oregon DEQ and other reputable sources such as the International ReferenceCenter for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services, Quantis, PE Americas (nowthinkstep), University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems, and Michigan State
University Center for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability as well as publicly available
studies completed by Franklin Associates.
The initial search terms were determined based on a preliminary search for LCA studies
addressing a product type, material, or material attribute. Our initial investigation found that LCA
and life cycle were effective for limiting results to LCA studies and related work while
packaging, package, container, bag, box, clamshell, and bottle were effective in returning
packaging-related studies.
21

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareThe searches for literature were then expanded in a second round and included other searchable
peer-reviewed sources to cover all journals, dissertations, and published technical reports byusing a university library search engine.3 An abstract search was performed using expanded
queries. After the second round of search was conducted, the previously identified studies wereselected for inclusion in this review based on the following criteria:The study focused on packaging, FSW, or materials used to create packaging or FSW.
The study focused on at least one of the four material attributes: recycled content,
recyclability, biobased/renewable, or compostability.
The study in question was a published, comparative LCA accessible online.
The study included quantitative results for one or more impact categories for thematerials analyzed.

Supporting Information A contains a complete list of the search terms used for each productattribute combination, as well as information on the product and packaging types studied, thefunctional unit, geography, system boundary, life cycle inventory (LCI) data sources, allocation
method(s), LCIA method, result categories, and key findings for the studies selected for an indepth review and analysis.

Packaging
Recycled Content
Terms used to identify articles for the recycled content attribute include recycled content,
recycled material, recycled fiber, rPET, cullet, and OCC, where rPET refers to recycled PET and
OCC refers to old corrugated cardboard. Although steel, aluminum, and high density
polyethylene (HDPE) are also highly recycled materials (U.S. EPA Office of Resource
Conservation and Recovery 2016), search terms for these materials were not explicitly included.
Whereas the terms rPET, cullet, and OCC are unique in that they specifically refer to therecycled content of PET, glass, and corrugated boxes and therefore help to identify studies whererecycled content is considered.
An initial search was conducted which was limited to journal articles that included the terms
LCA and packaging as well as either recycled content, recycled material, recycled fiber, rPET, or
cullet somewhere within the article. The search yielded 73 results. An initial manual scan of theresults looking at the title and abstract identified 10 potentially relevant articles.
After further examination of the 10 articles, seven were found to address the topic ofenvironmental impacts in the context of recycled content as a material attribute.
The literature review for recycled content was expanded, resulting in 59 potentially relevant
studies, excluding newspaper and magazine articles. The same query was used to search all fields

3

University of Cincinnati Library advanced search engine, last accessed September 2017:[http://uc.summon.serialssolutions.com/advanced#!/advanced]

22

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
combined with the journal publication title through the advanced search tool across several
publishers’ websites for Journal of Cleaner Production4, Environmental Science andTechnology5, Journal of Industrial Ecology6, and Packaging Technology and Science.6 These
searches identified 389, 75, 132, and 35 journal articles, respectively.
Several articles relating to recycled content or recycling were identified for further review, fourof which were determined to examine the life cycle environmental impact of recycled content inpackaging. Four publicly available LCA studies carried out by Franklin Associates were found to
be relevant to this study, two of which were completed on behalf of Oregon DEQ. Additional
studies were identified by Oregon DEQ for inclusion. In total there were 20 studies identified forreview, three of which compare environmental impacts of recycled materials to virgin materials
and 17 that compare the environmental impacts of two or more functionally equivalent
packaging options with different levels of recycled content.

Recyclable
Terms used to identify articles for the recyclable attribute include recyclable, recycling,
recyclability, material recycling facilities, and recyclate. These terms were combined with LCA
and life cycle assessment, as well as with packaging, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, and othermaterials to create complex search terms with two or three components (e.g. recyclable and LCA
and packaging). The terms packaging weight and packaging type were combined with the above
terms to expand the search for studies that considered the impacts caused by different packaging
materials, such as flexible or lightweight packaging. The terms market, market-based, anddisplacement were also combined with LCA terms to find studies that used market-based
methods of allocating displacement of primary products and the related environmental impact.
The term not recyclable was included in the search to find comparisons between packaging
materials that are recyclable and materials that are explicitly not recyclable and used for the same
purpose.
The results of the searches varied significantly by search terms. Overall, the search results
included many studies that focused on different aspects of recycling, but few that combined
recycling with quantitative LCA results focused on packaging. Searches including the terms
recyclable or recyclability returned a low number of records with no studies that fit the above
criteria. In contrast, searches including the term recycling resulted in more records that wererelevant. The complex search term recycling and packaging and life cycle assessment returned
the largest number of records, 1,143, yielding 8 studies that met all criteria. The searches for
packaging weight and packaging type and not recyclable did not result in any additional relevant
studies. One additional relevant study was identified using the packaging weight search term. A
study previously identified during the recycled content review but not used for that attribute, met
the inclusion criteria for the recyclable attribute. The analysis of the recyclable attribute is based

4

Science Direct advanced search engine, last accessed September 2017:[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/search]
5
ACS Publications advanced search engine, last accessed September 2017: [http://pubs.acs.org/search/advanced]
6
Wiley Online Library advanced search engine, last accessed September 2017:[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/advanced/search]

23

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareon a total of 18 comparative studies, 10 studies with quantitative environmental comparisons
unique to the recyclability section, six identified in the Recycled Content section and two fromthe Compostable section.

BiobasedTerms used to identify articles for the biobased attribute include modal, tencel, wood, paper,
paperboard, kraft paper, corrugated cardboard, polyethylene terephthalate, PET, polylactic
acid, PLA, poly(itaconic acid), PIA, polyhydroxyalkanoates, PHA, polyethylene, and PE. The
scope of the search was initially limited to LCA studies that discussed the materials within thecontext of packaging and FSW. This yielded relatively few studies. The search was then
expanded to include biobased chemicals used to make plastic packaging. These combined
searches yielded a total of 41 LCAs for further consideration. Twenty-seven of the LCAs wereselected for inclusion in this literature review.
Of the studies considered for inclusion, 10 were comparative reviews of LCA studies, which
provided context for the differences between material types, while 15 studies provided
quantitative results for environmental impact categories. Those 15 studies yielded a total of 459
comparisons including 238 comparisons of the same material with biobased or fossil feedstocks
and 221 comparisons of biobased materials to a conventional material used in similar
applications.
The biobased materials assessed by these studies include cellulosic materials like wood and plantfibers, seven plastics: PLA, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), HDPE, low-density polyethylene(LDPE), laminated film (variety of feedstocks), PET, and TPS, as well as three chemical
precursors: poly(itaconic acid) (PIA), purified terephthalic acid (PTA), and p-xylene. Note that
PIA is a chemical precursor that is proposed for use as a desiccant or in the production of
coatings for packaging. Although it is not currently in widespread use in packaging, because it
came up in our literature review as a biobased chemical with potential packaging applications,
we added it to our search terms.

Compostable
Terms used to identify articles for the compostable attribute include life cycle assessment,
compost, and packaging, and variations thereof. Due to a low number of studies found initially,
the search criteria were modified to include studies that focused on polymers used to createcompostable packaging materials.
Additional search terms used included the combination of compost, LCA, and types of packaging
materials (boxes, films, bottles, sheets, etc.). The cumulative search results yielded 10 studies thatmatched the revised search criteria and provided quantitative comparative results. Additional
studies which provide valuable context for compostable packages/materials (e.g. reviews of
LCAs on organic waste management) were reviewed in detail.

24

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Food Service WareThe same procedure employed during the literature review for packaging was used in the search
for FSW products for the four attributes. LCA studies of FSW which include quantitative life
cycle impact assessment results allowing comparisons between FSW with and without at least
one of the four attributes were considered suitable for inclusion in the review. The review
includes both peer reviewed journal articles and published reports. Several studies werereviewed but not included (Beauregard and colleagues, 2007; Jishi and colleagues 2013), either
because the studies did not clearly define a functional unit or basis of comparison for theirresults, or because they did not contain sufficient information to understand the scope and qualityof the results presented.
Terms used to search for studies include combinations of life cycle assessment, food service
ware, tableware, takeout, and dining. Search terms for specific FSW products were also used andcombined with life cycle assessment and specific attributes to create complex terms (seeSupporting Information A for specific search terms used). The specific FSW product LCAs
identified in the literature search are cutlery, knives, forks, spoons, cups, lids, plates, dishes,napkins, and straws. In addition to studies found using the search terms, additional relevant
studies were discovered through inspecting the references cited in the initially identified studies.
In total, 11 relevant studies were identified, which provided 654 comparisons for therecyclability attribute, 327 for the biobased/renewable attribute, and 363 for the compostability
attribute. No LCA midpoint comparisons were identified for the recycled content attribute.

Creating Comparisons from the Literature
LCIA results were extracted from studies and recorded in a table. The impact categories exploredin each study were aggregated into the impact categories previously described in the
introduction. The categories include global warming, acidification, eutrophication (freshwaterand marine), ozone depletion, smog formation, particulate matter formation (leading to humanrespiratory effects), human toxicity, ecosystem toxicity (ecotoxicity), fossil energy depletion,mineral depletion, water consumption, and land use. Some LCIA methods aggregate freshwaterand marine eutrophication using normalized emissions; these are identifiable in the tables by asingle ‘x’ in a combined cell for both forms of eutrophication.
LCIA results were summarized and compared by creating ratios of results for a packaging or
FSW option with the scenarios including the environmental attribute of interest (i.e. recycledcontent, recyclable, biobased, or compostable) divided by the results for the conventional optionthat provides the same function. Specifically, for each impact category included in a study, thecomparisons were calculated using the following equation:[𝐿𝐶𝐼𝐴 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒][𝐿𝐶𝐼𝐴 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙]
Comparisons are made across packaging and FSW scenarios examined within a given study andnot across studies as it is difficult to harmonize results to account for differences in systemboundaries, data sources, allocation methods, and impact assessment methods. The ratios were
25

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warerecorded in a table (see Supporting Information B) and are the basis for the figures presented in
the results section. Although some studies consider packaging systems of different sizes, allcomparisons made are based on the same functional unit.
LCA inherently involves a considerable amount of data and modeling uncertainty. For thisreview, differences in comparisons are considered meaningful if the ratio of results is less than
0.75 or greater than 1.25. More specifically, we classified the ratios of an option with theattribute to an option without the attribute as follows:






lower impact (<0.75)
marginal decrease in impact (≥0.75 and <1.00)
no difference (1.0)
marginal increase in impact (>1.00 and ≤1.25)
higher impact (>1.25)

The larger the ratio value, the greater the environmental impact of the material(s) being
evaluated compared to the baseline material. These ranges are presented in the results sections
and are used to interpret the comparisons found through the literature for each attribute.
In some cases, the LCIA results are presented as negative values, meaning they represent a net
reduction in environmental impacts. This is usually a result of avoided burdens assigned to that
scenario. For example, incineration of plastic waste may result in a negative GWP, as the energy
recovered from the plastic may offset electricity or heat generated from more carbon intensive
fossil-based sources. If a conventional packaging scenario results in a negative LCIA value, thenormal ratio equation will not yield a result consistent with the previously introduced
classifications. Instead, the percent difference between the two LCIA results is calculated, using
the following equation:
1−[𝐿𝐶𝐼𝐴 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙] − [𝐿𝐶𝐼𝐴 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒][𝐿𝐶𝐼𝐴 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙]

This approach yields the same results as the simpler ratio equation for two positive values andensures that comparisons where the conventional option has a negative value will yield an
outcome consistent with the impact classifications presented.
Each of the attribute result sections below discusses the scope of the literature for that topic, theresults of the application of the ratios for comparison, and a discussion of the key findings forstudies investigating the relevant attribute. The figures used to depict the findings of the reviewof quantitative comparisons provided in the literature show the results for all comparisons,allowing the reader to see when comparisons were deemed marginal (due to being less than a 25
percent difference), and break out results for each impact category allowing the reader to easily
see which impact categories are more and less frequently studied in the literature. Our discussion
takes the number of comparisons for each impact category as well as the marginal comparisons
into account to provide a complete picture of the results available in published LCA studies.

26

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Packaging Results
Recycled Content in Packaging
Scope
The analysis of the effect of using recycled content in packaging (not including FSW, which ispresented separately) includes three studies that compare environmental impacts of primary andsecondary production of the same material. Seventeen studies that compare the environmental
impacts of two or more functionally equivalent packaging options (different materials) withdifferent levels of recycled content were also identified and analyzed. A summary of the producttype, materials used in packaging, functional unit, geographic scope, recycling allocation used,
and results categories considered for each of these studies is documented in Table 1. The studies
are organized by decreasing number of impact categories considered; thus, the study by Cleary(2013) is listed at the top of the table as it is the only study that considered all impact categories.
Figure 3 illustrates the frequency with which packaging material, life cycle phase, or results
category is represented within the studies included. Across all comparative packaging studies
analyzed, a total of 136 packaging system scenarios were documented, allowing for a total of
793 distinct comparisons across all results categories.

27

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 1. Scope of studies included in the packaging recycled content comparisons.

xBelley, 2011

Plastic trays for fruits andvegetables

1 tray to consumer

CanadaImpact2002+xxFranklin Assoc., 2009

Plastic, aluminum, and glass 1,000 gallons tobottles for water
consumer

US

TRACI

x

x

Markwardt, 2016

Variety of plastic, metal, andglass food containers

EU

German Fed. Env.
Agency, CML, CED

xPricewaterhouse Coopers, Cork and aluminum/ plastic 1,000 0.75L bottle
2008
closures for wine
stoppers

UK

IPCC, ETH, WMO,
CML

x

Kuczenski, 2012

US

CML, TRACI 2.0x

PET to deliver 1L to
consumer

1

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

RC

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

RC

x

RC

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

50

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

Recycling allocation methods: RC = Recycled Content; AB = Avoided Burden; 50 = 50/50; MB = Market-based.
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

28

x

x

50
x

x

RC

x

x

x

Land Use

TRACIxWater Consumption

N Americax

Mineral Depletion

1 kg resinx

Fossil Energy Depletion

Resin

Ecotoxicity

Franklin Assoc., 2011x

Human Health, Toxicityx

Human Health, Respiratory

CML 2001

Smog

UK

Ozone Depletion

1 L packaged beverage

Eutrophication, Marine

Glass and plastic bottles,
aluminum cansxx

Eutrophication, Freshwater

Amienyo, 2013xx

Acidification

CML 2001

RC

Global WarmingUKx

End of Life

Glass bottles and metal cans 1 L consumed
for beerx

AB

Result Categories

Product Use

Amienyo, 2016

x

Cradle-to-Gate

CML 2001x

Incl. Product Life Cycle

UK, Australiax

Allocation Method

Bottles and cartons for wine 0.75 L consumedxComposite / Other

Amienyo, 2014

ILCD midpoint, GHG
protocol, CED

xAluminum

1 tray w/ 1 piece poultry Italy

Boundary

Steel

Plastic and metal trays forpoultryx

Glass

Zampori, 2014

ReCiPe v1.02, IMPACT
2002+, TRACI 2Paper / Cardboard

Functional Unit
1 L of wine; 750 ml ofspirits

Laminated Paperboard

Packaging Type
Glass bottles for wine andspirits

Plastic bottles

LCIA Method

Biobased Resins

Author and Year
Cleary, 2013

1,000 L to retail

Geography
Toronto

Plastic Resins

Materials

x

x

x
x
x
x

x

x

x

x

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 1. Scope of studies included in the packaging recycled content comparisons, continued.

x

x

x

x

50

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

RC

x

x

Franklin Assoc., 2008

Cans, cups, and pouches for 10,000 oz to consumer
tuna

US

IPCC 2005

x

Krystofik, 2014

Multi-material inkjet
cartridges

US

ReCiPe, CED, andGWP

Arena, 2003

Plastic containers for liquids 1 kg resin

Italy

Several 3

BIER, 2012

Various packaging andbottles for beer

N America, UK

GHG Protocol, PAS
2050

Dormer, 2013

Plastic trays for mushrooms 14 kg delivered toconsumerUK

PAS 2050x

Mattila, 2011

Plastic, paper, cotton, andstarch grocery bags

Finland

Not specified

x

x

85

15

x

x

x

RC

x
15

20

35

25

25

20

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

85

95

25

100

35

30

10

x

x

RC

Recycling allocation methods: RC = Recycled Content; AB = Avoided Burden; 50 = 50/50; MB = Market-based.
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

29x

EcotoxicityxxLand Use

Human Health, Toxicity

x

IPCC 2005

Water Consumption

Human Health, Respiratory

50

US

Acidificationx

Various containers and bags 10,000 oz to consumer
for coffee

Product UsexFranklin Assoc., 2008x

Cradle-to-Gatexx

Aluminum

x

x

Steel

x

none

Glass

x

Biobased Resins

50

Plastic Resins

x

US

x

Mineral Depletion

Smog

Fossil Energy Depletion

Ozone Depletion

Eutrophication, Marine

Eutrophication, Freshwaterx

Global Warmingx

End of Life

Incl. Product Life Cycle

1

Allocation Method

Composite / Other

Paper / Cardboardxx

Various boxes, bags, and fill 10,000 packages tofor mail-order goods
consumerBags for use for 1 yearxxFranklin Assoc., 2004

1 L to consumer

Result Categoriesx

Packaging Type
Plastic and glass bottles for
medical supplies

5 use cycles

LCIA Method
ReCiPe and CED

Boundary

MB

Author and Year
Dhaliwal, 2014

Percent of Total

Functional Unit
Geography
1 dose (96 ml) to patient US, Global

Laminated Paperboard

Materials

10

55

55

35

50

60

35

55

40

70

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
024Count of Studies (Total of 20)
8
10
12

6

14

Materials

Plastic Resins

18

15%

Laminated Paperboard

15%

Paper / Cardboard

20%

Glass

35%
25%

Aluminum

25%

Composite / Other

20%

Incl. Product Life Cycle

25%

Cradle-to-Gate

Product Use

100%
10%

End of Life

85%

Global Warming

95%

Acidification

55%

Eutrophication, Freshwater

55%

Result Categories

Eutrophication, Marine

45%

Ozone Depletion

50%

Smog

60%

Human Health, Respiratory

35%

Human Health, Toxicity

45%

Ecotoxicity

40%

Fossil Energy Depletion

70%

Mineral Depletion

35%

Water Consumption

Land Use

20

85%

Biobased Resins

Steel

Boundary

16

30%
10%

Figure 3. Scope of studies included in the packaging recycled content comparisons.
Materials with recycled content generally have lower environmental impacts than
producing the same materials from primary feedstocks
When comparing production of plastic resin with 100 percent recycled content to plastic resinwith 100 percent virgin content, three studies were identified that allowed for 5 comparisonsacross one or more environmental impact categories. A total of 30 comparisons were made.
Across all impact categories, the recycled resin had significantly lower impacts in 27 of thesecomparisons, marginally lower impacts in two comparisons, and marginally higher impacts in
one of the comparisons.
The only instances where recycled material was found to result in higher impacts involved
eutrophication, and here the results were mixed with higher impacts in only one of threecomparisons for eutrophication. The following case studies from the literature illustrate theseresults.
Kuczenski and Geyer completed an LCA of recycling of PET bottles collected in California’sbottle redemption program and subsequent production of rPET pellets. The impacts of producing
rPET pellets are compared to those of producing virgin PET pellets in addition to end-of-lifescenarios including landfilling post-consumer PET bottles which are recovered for recycling in
the rPET production scenario. Net impacts for in-state reclamation of PET bottles were
30

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Waresignificantly lower for the GWP, particulate matter, primary energy demand, acidification, andsmog formation potential categories, ranging from 17 percent to 39 percent of impact levels
compared to virgin PET pellets (including landfilling of PET bottles). Eutrophication potential
impacts were higher based on the TRACI impact method due to wastewater emissions from thereclamation process. Eutrophication, smog, and acidification potentials as well as particulatematter results were sensitive to the assumptions used to allocate burdens for consumer drop-off
collection, fuel efficiency for curbside collection, and the distance recovered bottles aretransported to the reclamation facility (in-state vs out-of-state vs East Asia). Primary energy
demand and GWP were also sensitive to consumer drop-off collection scenario assumptions.
An impact assessment performed on national average life cycle inventory (LCI) data for virginand recycled PET and HDPE production that were collected by Franklin Associates andpublished in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s US LCI database (NREL 2015)
showed that total energy demand, smog formation, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity impacts forrPET and recycled HDPE (rHDPE) range from 2-22 percent of the virgin resin impact levels, 3065 percent of virgin resin levels for global warming, acidification, eutrophication, ozone
depletion, and particulate matter formation impacts, and 76-90 percent of virgin resin levels forwater depletion.
A life cycle inventory for the recycling process of PE and PET liquid containers in Italy foundthat both rPET and recycled PE were energetically favorable in comparison to the virgin resins(Arena, Mastellone, and Perugini 2003). Gross energy consumption per kg of rPET ranged from42-55 MJ compared with the 77 MJ per kg for the cradle-to-gate gross energy demand of virgin
PET. Similarly, they calculated 40-49 MJ per kg recycled PE compared to 80 MJ per kg virgin
PE resin.
In addition to the three studies comparing plastic resins, four studies provided comparisons of
packaging systems with 100 percent recycled content material with 100 percent virgin material.
Krystofik and colleagues (2014) compared inkjet cartridges with 100 percent recycled content
PET and 100 percent virgin PET and quantified GWP and primary energy demand. They foundthat the cartridges with recycled content performed marginally better for both metrics with
impact ratios of 0.90 and 0.85 respectively. Dormer and colleagues (2013) compare PET trays
for mushroom packaging and found that a 100 percent RC PET tray has a lower GWP than a 100
percent virgin PET tray with an impact ratio of 0.32. Amieyo and colleagues compare 100
percent recycled content glass wine (2014) and beer (2016) with 100 percent virgin glass. They
found marginally lower impacts for the recycled content glass for the global warming,
acidification, ozone depletion, smog, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, and fossil energy demand
categories, and equivalent impacts for the water consumption category.
Packaging with higher recycled content tends to be environmentally preferable to options
using the same material with less recycled content
When comparing functionally equivalent packaging systems made of the same material but withdifferent levels of recycled content, 16 studies were found and a total of 259 comparisons were
made. Most comparisons (203, 74 percent) showed marginally decreased impacts across all
impact categories for the packaging with higher recycled content, significantly had lower

31

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
impacts in 52 (20 percent) comparisons, and significantly higher impacts in only one of thecomparisons.
The only instance where packaging with higher recycled content was found to result in higher
impacts involved ozone depletion, and this was a case where a single-serving beverage container
including recycled content was compared to a virgin material multi-serve beverage container thatwould require significantly less material to fulfill the functional unit. These results are
summarized in Figure 4 and are illustrated by the following case studies from the literature.
An LCA study on poultry product packaging included an assessment of an aluminum tray witheither 30 percent or 100 percent recycled content (Zampori and Dotelli 2014). Shifting from 30
percent to 100 percent recycled content in the aluminum tray decreased most production impacts
60-80 percent. Considering the full life cycle, human toxicity potential from carcinogens
decreases by roughly two-thirds, eutrophication potential and freshwater ecotoxicity potential
each decrease by roughly half, and mineral depletion potential decreased by roughly a third. Allother impact categories decrease by 5-20 percent.
-10

0

10

Number of Comparisons
20
30
40

50

Figure 4. Comparison of packaging with higher recycled content to packaging of the samematerial with less or no recycled content.

Human Toxicity
Global Warming
Fossil Energy
Ecotoxicity
Eutrophication
Smog
Acidification
PM Formation
Ozone Depletion
Mineral Depletion
Water Cons.
Land Occupation
Ionizing Radiation

Figure 4. Comparison of packaging with higher recycled content to packaging of the samematerial with less or no recycled content. Ratios reflect the result for packaging that has higher recycledcontent divided by the result for packaging of the same material that has less or no recycled content. Thus ratios <1indicate packaging with higher recycled content performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive
number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicate packaging with higher recycled content performs worse and areshown in the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts ofcomparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green andlight red represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by
the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red
comparisons.

Dhaliwal and colleagues (2014) looked at packaging for global distribution of contrast media for
x-rays and the effect of using ‘internally reworked glass cullet’ (pre-consumer recycled material)

32

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareto reduce the impacts of a glass vial. Using a market-based allocation method,7 the authors foundincreasing recycled content by 10 percent (from 10 to 20 percent or 20 to 30 percent) resulted ina 3-5 percent decrease in overall results across impact categories. Increasing glass cullet by 30
percentage points (from 30 to 60 percent) reduced total impacts an additional 8-14 percent.
A third study by Krystofik and colleagues (2014) conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine
the effect of greater rPET content in inkjet cartridges. In comparison to inkjet cartridges with 100
percent virgin PET, incorporating 30, 50, 70, and 100 percent rPET into the cartridge resulted in
2, 4, 6 and 10 percent reductions in life cycle GWP of the cartridge, respectively. Similarly, life
cycle cumulative energy demand for the cartridge was reduced 5, 8, 11, and 15 percent.
Seven additional studies evaluated a variety of packaging including red wine containers(Amienyo, Camilleri, and Azapagic 2014), coffee containers (Franklin Associates 2008a), foodtrays (Belley 2011; Dormer et al. 2013), shopping bags (Mattila et al. 2011), water bottles(Franklin Associates 2009), and packaging for e-commerce shipping (Franklin Associates 2004)
confirm the trend of improved environmental performance with increased recycled content inglass, aluminum, PET, LDPE, expanded polystyrene (EPS), newsprint, kraft paper, corrugatedboxes, and fiberboard packaging.

Packaging design, material choice, and weight are more important in determining
environmental preference than recycled content
When comparing functionally equivalent packaging systems made of different material and withdiffering levels of recycled content, 15 studies were identified that allowed for 114 scenarios
across one or more environmental impact categories. A total of 534 comparisons were made.
Across all impact categories, the packaging with higher recycled content had significantly lower
impacts in 113 of these comparisons and significantly higher impacts in 327 of the comparisons.
In 93 of the comparisons, the impact results for the packaging with higher recycled content were
not deemed to be meaningfully different.
When considering individual impact categories, the results comparing packaging systems madeof a material with higher recycled content with a packaging system of different material withlower or no recycled content are mixed; see Figure 5. The top portion of the figure (a) shows allcomparisons. The bottom portion of the figure (panel b) explores whether this finding was
related to the choice of allocation method used by the studies, and it reveals that even taking only
studies which use the recycled content (100/0) allocation method thus favoring the use ofrecycled content, the results are still mixed. This indicates that material differences and recycledcontent both significantly influence life cycle impacts. The following case studies from theliterature are characteristic of these results.
Markwardt and Wellenreuther (2016) looked at various types of liquid food packaging systems
used in the European market including two laminate board cartons, a laminate pouch, a glass jar

7Market-based allocation is a form of economic allocation in which the burdens of inputs and are assigned to the coproduct outputs in proportion to their relative market values.

33

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

-100

-80

Number of Comparisons
-40
-20
0

-60

20

with higher recycled content to packaging of differentof packaging
Comparison
5b.content
Figure 5a. Comparison of packaging with higherFigure
recycled
to packaging
of different
recycled content,
nocomparisonsmaterial withmaterial with less or no recycled content, all comparisons(a) lessand oronly
usingall comparisons (a) and only comparisons using
the recycled content (100/0) allocation methodthe(b).recycled content (100/0) allocation method (b).

Water Cons.
Land Occupation
Ionizing Radiation
Acidification
Mineral Depletion
Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Eutrophication
Smog
Ozone Depletion
Fossil Energy
Global Warming

-40

40

(a)

-30

-20

Number of Comparisons
-10
0
10

Water Cons.
Land Occupation
Ionizing Radiation
Acidification
Mineral Depletion
Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Eutrophication
Smog
Ozone Depletion
Fossil Energy
Global Warming

20

(b)

Figure 5. Comparison of packaging with higher recycled content to packaging of different
material with less or no recycled content, all comparisons (a) and only comparisons using
the recycled content (100/0) allocation method (b). Ratios reflect the result for packaging that has
higher recycled content divided by the result for packaging of a different material that has less or no recycledcontent. Thus ratios <1 indicate packaging with higher recycled content performs better and are shown in the figurein green as the positive number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicate packaging with higher recycled content
performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red
represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful
differences. Light green and light red represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25
respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. thenumber of dark green minus dark red comparisons. All panels sorted by net result of comparisons from panel a.

34

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Waremanufactured with 59 percent recycled content, a steel can, and a plastic container.8 Despite therecycled content in the glass jar, the glass packaging system had either the highest or second
highest results for all the impact categories examined while the lightweight cartons performed
the best. As shown in Supporting Information B, only the plastic container performed worse than
the glass jar in the smog formation, aquatic eutrophication, and abiotic resource depletion
categories.
Likewise, the Dhaliwal and colleagues (2014) study mentioned above also looked at the impacts
of a virgin polypropylene (PP) vial to deliver contrast media. The baseline analysis showed thatthe results for the PP vial ranged from 24 to 55 percent of impacts of the glass vial with 20
percent recycled content. Since increasing the recycled cullet content of the glass vial content to
60 percent would only decrease total impacts by about 20 percent, the PP vial impacts still
ranged from roughly 29 to 64 percent of the impacts for the 60 percent recycled content glass
vial.
Several additional studies comparing heavier packaging such as glass bottles, rigid plastic
containers, steel cans, and corrugated boxes with recycled content to lighter-weight virgin
packaging such as laminate paperboard cartons, plastic laminate pouches, and paper or film
mailing bags, find that the lighter-weight packaging outperforms the heavier packaging in all
impact categories examined regardless of recycled content (Amienyo, Camilleri, and Azapagic
2014; Franklin Associates 2004, 2008b, 2008a). This finding is driven by the additional material
extraction, processing, and manufacturing for heavier materials rather than differences intransportation-related impacts associated with the packaging options.
Other cases comparing packaging with and without recycled content also show mixed results.
Amienyo and colleagues (2013) compared the impacts associated with one liter of carbonateddrinks packaged in aluminum cans, glass bottles, and PET bottles in the UK. While the glass
bottle with 35 percent recycled content had higher impact results than the virgin PET bottle in all
categories except aquatic eutrophication and freshwater ecotoxicity, the 38 percent recycledcontent aluminum can had lower impact results than the virgin PET bottle for primary energy
demand, aquatic eutrophication, ozone depletion potential, smog formation, freshwater
ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and abiotic resource depletion.
In a comparison of food packaging trays by Belley (2011), the virgin extruded polystyrene (XPS)
tray impacts ranged from 20 to 87 percent of the PET tray made completely from recycledcontent. However, the XPS trays had about twice the acidification potential and human toxicity
impacts as the molded pulp trays made completely from recycled content, largely due toprocesses associated with the virgin material production.
In the Zampori and Dotelli (2014) study, the 30 and 100 percent recycled content aluminum trays
were compared to a virgin polystyrene (PS) tray. When looking just at tray production impacts,
results for PS tray were 75-97.5 percent lower than the 30 percent recycled content aluminum

8

Note that Markwardt and Wellenreuther (2016) does not state the recycled content of the other packaging options,however conventional steel and plastic often have recycled content. The authors did not respond to our request for
more information.

35

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Waretray. It is important to note that this study includes the use phase of cooking the poultry in anelectric oven because the aluminum tray was specifically designed to be used in the oven andreduce cooking time (and therefore energy use) relative to cooking in a typical ceramic pan. 9
Even though the aluminum tray use phase impacts are 13 percent lower than for the PS tray, thehigh production impacts for the 30 percent recycled content aluminum tray resulted in higher life
cycle impacts than the PS tray in six of the 16 impact categories considered. The differences fornine of the 16 categories were not considered meaningful. The impacts for the 30 percent
recycled content aluminum tray were only lower than the virgin PS tray in the category of water
depletion. When 100 percent recycled content aluminum is modeled, the aluminum impacts are
not meaningfully different than the PS tray in seven of the 16 impact categories (global warming,ozone depletion, particulate matter, smog formation, terrestrial and marine eutrophication, andacidification), but considerably (60 percent) lower in water depletion. The 100 percent recycledcontent aluminum tray was still higher in freshwater eutrophication and carcinogenic human
toxicity cancer effects. Zampori and Dotelli’s Monte Carlo analysis10 found the differences
between 100 percent recycled content Al tray and virgin PS tray significant except in the case ofionizing radiation (human health and ecosystems), freshwater ecotoxicity, and resource
depletion. The authors found that GWP results for these two packaging types would change incountries such as France where more of the electricity is sourced from renewable energy or
nuclear sources, which would diminish the contribution of the use phase, possibly causing the PS
tray to perform better than the aluminum tray even with 100 percent recycled content.
Summary – recycled content
Increasing the recycled content of a product generally results in a decrease in harmfulenvironmental impacts. Three studies found that when comparing production of 100 percent
recycled content material to the same material with 100 percent virgin content, the 100 percent
recycled material incurs reduced environmental impacts over the lifetime of the material.
However, However, some environmental indicators do not always follow this trend, such as
eutrophication impacts which increase in some cases due to the additional processing to clean
recycled feedstocks (Kuczenski and Geyer 2013). Other investigations demonstrate thereductions in life cycle impacts associated with using recycled material can vary considerably inmagnitude – from 60-80 percent for aluminum packaging down to a few percentage points for
inkjet cartridges made of PET (Zampori and Dotelli 2014; Dhaliwal et al. 2014; Krystofik,
Babbitt, and Gaustad 2014). A key explanation for this variation is the inherent difference inproduction of varying types of virgin materials. For example, the production of aluminum ismuch more energy intensive than that of plastic resins, so replacing virgin aluminum withrecycled content results in greater impact reductions than can be achieved through recycledplastics.
The studies examined suggest that it is not possible to infer environmental preference for a
packaging of one material type over another solely based on recycled content, with packaging

9

Use of a ceramic pan and washing was accounted for in the PS tray system but made insignificant contribution to
overall results.
10
A Monte Carlo analysis uses repeated random sampling of values within the uncertainty distribution associatedwith each input parameter to show the distribution of overall model results.

36

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warematerial and weight being determining factors. As an example, while it is common for glass
products to contain recycled cullet, glass packaging tends to have higher impacts than virginplastic containers (Markwardt and Wellenreuther 2016; Dhaliwal et al. 2014; Amienyo et al.
2013). For some packaging products, other aspects of the life cycle, such as cooking during theuse phase for the aluminum tray, or electricity grid mix may have greater influence over whichpackaging material has lower impacts for a given product than whether the packaging includes
recycled content.

Recyclable Packaging
Scope
A total of 18 LCA studies comparing recyclable packaging that met all criteria were found. Sixof these studies are also included in the recycled content results of this review; another two arealso included in the compostability results; and 10 are only relevant to recyclability, as thesestudies are either framed in terms of recycling rates or recycling as an end-of-life disposal option,rather than in terms of recycled content in packaging. Table 2 and Figure 6 provide a summary of
the studies, which include 153 packaging scenarios and 960 unique comparisons across theimpact categories considered. Plastic resins are considered in most studies (78 percent), while
cork (for bottle stoppers) is the least represented material, appearing in only one study. Fivestudies consider more than one recycling rate for the same packaging format. The remaining
studies assume various recycling rates for the different materials they consider. Likewise, fourstudies focus only on the end-of-life for the packaging and assume that other life cycle phases areequivalent. Additional studies were identified that discuss approaches for accurately reflecting
the potential benefits of recyclability in LCA studies, but which do not provide quantitative
results for packaging systems. These studies are cited in the discussion portion of this section.
The discussion of findings for comparisons between recyclable and non-recyclable packaging inthis section is complicated by nuances in the definition of recyclable. In the Introduction section
we provided a definition for recyclable packaging that requires the existence of infrastructure
making it feasible to collect and reprocess post-consumer packaging (FTC, 2012). Thus, it ispossible that a packaging format considered recyclable in one area may not be considered
recyclable in another due to the lack of adequate collection services and/or reprocessing
facilities. This fine point makes generalizing comparisons between recyclable and non-recyclable
packaging options challenging. Thus, in the discussion that follows, we refer to packaging
options such as laminate packaging as non-recyclable since sufficient infrastructure for
economically efficient recycling does not exist in most areas in the U.S. Studies that consider
such materials are indicated in the discussion below. Furthermore, most of the packaging options
included in the studies we identified are recyclable and therefore most of the comparisonsdiscussed in this section are between packaging that is recycled at its end-of-life and anotherpackaging option that is recyclable, but which is either recycled at a lower rate or not recycled atits end-of-life. This approach to defining recyclable materials is also used for the comparisonsdiscussed in the results for recyclable FSW.

37

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 2. Scope of studies included in the recyclable packaging comparisons.

Ozone Depletion

Smog

Human Health, Respiratory

Human Health, Toxicity

Ecotoxicity

Fossil Energy Depletion

Mineral Depletion

Water Consumption

Land Usex

Eutrophication, Marine

AB

Eutrophication, Freshwaterxx

Acidificationx

AB

Global Warmingxx

End of Life

Brazilx

RC/AB

Result Categories

Product Use

Oliveira and Magrini, 2017 Lubricant Oil
1 tonne HDPE
(Plastic Containers)x

Cradle-to-Gate

ReCiPe v1.02,
IMPACT 2002+, TRACI
2
ReCiPe 2008

x

Boundary

Recycling Allocation Method

TorontoComposite/Other

1 L of wine; 750 ml ofspirits

Aluminum

Wine; Spirits

Steel

Cleary, 20131

Glass

LCIA Method
ReCiPe 2008
midpoint

Paper/Cardboard

Geography
Italy

Laminated Paper Board

Functional Unit
Tray with sealed lid,
0.54 L capacity

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Packaging Type
Sliced meat

Plastic Resins

Author and Year
Toniolo et al., 2013

Includes multiple recycling rates
for same material

Recyclability
Considerations

Materials

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

midpoint

Rossi et al., 20152

Dry packaging

EOL treatment of 1 kg of Europe
dry packaging material

IMPACT 2002+

Humbert et al., 2009

Baby food1 baby food meal

EuropeIMPACT 2002+, CML
2001

Hottle et al., 20172

1 kg of polymer

United States TRACI v 2.1

Xie et al., 2013

Polymers for
packagingproduction
Aseptic packaging

1 ton post-consumption China
Tetra Pak waste

EcoIndicator99

xFranklin Assoc., 20091

Bottled water

1,000 gallons to
consumerUS

TRACI v 1x

Markwardt, 20161

Liquid food

1,000 L to retail

EuropeCML 2002, IPCC 2007xx

Xie et al., 2011

Milk (Aseptic
packaging)1000 L of milk

China

EcoIndicator 99

x

x

x

AB

x

x

AB

x
x

x

x

x
x

x
x

50

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

50

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

[1] Also found in the recycled content section[2] Also found in Compostability section[3] Cradle to cradle product system (for 30 loops)
Recycling allocation methods: RC = Recycled Content (100/0); AB = Avoided Burden (0/100); 50 = 50/50.
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

38

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x
x

x

x

x

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of theLife Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 2. Scope of studies included in the recyclable packaging comparisons, continued.

Franklin Assoc., 20081

Coffee1 L of beverage
10,000 oz to consumer

Franklin Assoc., 20081

Tuna

10,000 oz to consumer

Percent of Total Number

Spain

Inventory basedx

US

IPCC 2005

x

US

IPCC 2005

x
78

33

17

x

x

x

x

32

x

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

AB

x3

x

x

AB

x

x

x

x

x

x

x
x

x

50

x

x

x

x

x

x

50

x

x

x

x

78

74

100

100

33

17

28

11

72

67

17

44

61

56

72

x

x

44

28

x

x

17

x

x

x

[1] Also found in the recycled content section[2] Also found in Compostability section[3] Cradle to cradle product system (for 30 loops)
Recycling allocation methods: RC = Recycled Content (100/0); AB = Avoided Burden (0/100); 50 = 50/50.
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

39

x

x

Land Usexx

Water Consumptionxx

Mineral Depletion

x

AB

x
x

17

AB

x

x

x

x

x

Fossil Energy Depletion

Beer, juice, waterx

Ecotoxicity

Pasqualino et al., 2011x

Human Health, Toxicity

ILCD recommended LCIA
methodsx

Human Health, RespiratoryUKx

Ozone Depletion

Containment of 1 hl ofbeer for 30 life cycles

AB

Eutrophication, Marine

Beer (Aluminumcans)

Eutrophication, Freshwater

Niero, M., & Olsen, S.,
2016

x

Acidification

BrazilGlobal Warming

1000 L of milk

End of Life

Milk (Aseptic
packaging)x

x

Product Usex

Mourad et al., 2008

Ecocosts 2012,
Stepwise 2006,
Ecovalue 08
Inventory
based

Cradle-to-Gate

Belgiumx

Recycling Allocation Method

Total 2010 packaging
waste in Belgiumx

Result Categories

Includes multiple recycling rates forsame material

Packaging waste
recycling system

Composite/Otherx

Aluminum

IPCC, ETH, WMO,
CML

Steel

UK

20081
Ferreira et al., 2015

Glass

1,000 0.75L bottle
stoppers

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Wine

Paper/Cardboard

LCIA Method
CML 2002

Laminated Paper Board

Geography
EuropeBio-based Plastic Resins

Product Packaged Functional Unit
Cardboard
1 tonne of cardboard
packaging waste
packaging waste

Plastic Resins

Author and Year
Marion, 2005

Boundary

Smog

Recyclability
Considerations

Materials

56

89

39

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareCount of Studies (Total of 18)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Plastic Resins

Materials

15

Laminated Paper Board

32%

Steel

17%

Aluminum

33%

17%

Includes multiple recycling rates for same material

28%

50/50 Allocation Method

22%

Avoided Burden Allocation Method

78%

Cradle-to-Gate

74%

11%

End of Life

100%

Global Warming

100%

Acidification

72%

Eutrophication, Freshwater

Result Categories

18

17%

Glass

67%
17%

Ozone Depletion

44%

Smog

61%

Human Health, Respiratory

56%

Human Health, Toxicity

72%

Ecotoxicity

56%

Fossil Energy Depletion

89%

Mineral Depletion

Water Consumption

17

33%

Paper/Cardboard

Eutrophication, Marine

16

17%

Composite/Other

Boundary Recyclable

14

78%

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Product Use

13

44%
28%

Land Use

39%

Figure 6. Scope of studies included in the recyclable packaging comparisons.

Material type and weight may be more important than recyclability in determining life
cycle environmental burdens
When comparing recyclable packaging that is recycled with packaging of a different material
that is not recycled or that is recycled at a lower rate (limited by access to collecting services or
recycling services) or is not recyclable (limited by recycling technology), 10 studies were foundand a total of 522 comparisons were made across two or more environmental impact categories.
The packaging that is recyclable and recycled or has a higher recycling rate at the end-of-life had
lower impacts (ratio <0.75) in 203 comparisons (39 percent); marginal decrease in impact (ratio
between 0.75 and 1) in 58 comparisons (11 percent); marginal increase in impacts (ratios
between 1 and 1.25) in 32 comparisons (6 percent); and higher impacts (ratio > 1.25) in 228
comparisons (44 percent), with one comparison resulting in a ratio of 1.0
Results of all comparisons between different materials for individual impact categories are
mixed, as shown in Figure 7 (panel a). Overall, these comparisons suggest that packaging
materials may be more important in determining a package’s environmental footprint thanrecyclability. Comparisons of a given recycled material and a different recyclable material thatis incinerated or landfilled results in lower GWP and fossil energy impacts. Examples include
40

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warecomparisons between recycled aseptic cartons against landfilled or incinerated HDPE andbetween refillable glass bottles that are recycled against landfilled PET bottles. In the case of therefillable glass comparisons, it is worth noting that the results depend on the return andutilization rate as indicated by the study conditions. Conversely, comparisons resulting in higher
impacts for packaging recycled at higher rates are mostly between glass bottles and steel
containers that are recycled and other materials that are recycled at lower rates; the exception iswater consumption, where these same comparisons result in lower impacts.
Markwardt and Wellenreuther (2016) and Franklin Associates (2008a, 2008b) analyzed steel
cans recycled at rates of 71 and 62 percent, glass containers recycled at a rate of 69 percent, andaseptic cartons and plastic containers (pots and canisters) recycled at rates no higher than 37
percent. Out of the 44 comparisons between the steel containers and the less-recycled materials,
13 result in impact ratios lower than 0.75 for the steel containers. These low ratios were foundfor comparisons of the eutrophication, ozone depletion, energy demand, and smog categories
when comparing steel cans vs. plastic containers, because of emissions during incineration of the
non-recycled portions of discarded plastic, and for the acidification, eutrophication, and human
toxicity categories when comparing steel vs. glass containers, due to the higher impacts during
glass production. Comparisons between steel containers which are recycled at a higher rate andaseptic cartons which are recycled at a lower rate always result in higher impacts for the steel
containers.
The two studies mentioned above also analyze laminate packaging, which we consider notrecyclable for the purposes of this review as they are not currently recycled in any appreciable
amount. There are 56 comparisons from these studies between recyclable materials (steel, glass,aseptic carton, and HDPE packaging) and non-recyclable materials (laminate packaging). Fifteenof these comparisons result in a rate lower than 0.75. However, these low ratios for recyclable
packaging are of comparisons between recycled carton-based packaging and non-recyclable
laminate pouches, where the carton packaging performs better for all impact categories
considered. The rest of the comparisons are between recycled steel, glass, and plastic containers
vs. laminate packaging. 32 comparisons result in ratios greater than 1.25, for the global warming,
acidification, eutrophication, ozone depletion, human toxicity, energy demand, and mineraldepletion categories, despite the high recycling rate of glass and steel. The ratios for thecomparisons between recyclable and non-recyclable packaging are shown in Figure 7 (panel c).
It should be noted that Markwardt and Wellenreuther (2016) and Franklin Associates (2008a,
2008b) use the 50/50 allocation method, which assigns lower benefits to recycling than the
avoided burden allocation method. To test whether these results are related to the allocation
method used, Figure 7 (panel b) shows only results of studies that use the avoided burden
allocation method. Results in this part of the figure are still mixed. This suggests that although
the avoided burden allocation method tends to assign higher benefits to recyclable materials at
the end-of-life than studies that use the 50/50 allocation method, using this method does notguarantee a low ratio for the more recyclable material. Indeed, even if only the comparisons that
use the avoided burden method are counted, 39 percent of the comparisons still result in ratios
higher than 1.25. The following comparisons from the literature are representative of theseresults.

41

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

-60

-40

-20

Number of Comparisons
0
20
40

-30

80

Figure 7b. Comparisons between packaging that is recycled and packaging of a different
material that is either not recycled or recycled at a lower rate

Figure 7c. Comparisons
betweenpackaging that is recycled and packaging of a dFigure 7a. Comparisons between packaging thatisrecycled
and packaging
of a different
thatis either not recycled or recycled at a lower ratematerial that is either not recycled or recycledmaterial
at a lower
rate

Fossil Energy
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Global Warming
Land Occupation
Ecotoxicity
Ozone Depletion
Human Toxicity
Eutrophication
PM Formation
Smog
Acidification
Mineral Depletion

60

(a)

-15
Fossil Energy
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Global Warming
Land Occupation
Ecotoxicity
Ozone Depletion
Human Toxicity
Eutrophication
PM Formation
Smog
Acidification
Mineral Depletion-10

Number of Comparisons
-5
0
5

10

(c)

42

Fossil Energy
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Global Warming
Land Occupation
Ecotoxicity
Ozone Depletion
Human Toxicity
Eutrophication
PM Formation
Smog
Acidification
Mineral Depletion

-20

-10

0

Number of Comparisons
10
20
30
40

50

60

(b)

Figure 7. Comparisons between packaging that is recycled andpackaging of a different material that is either not recycled or
recycled at a lower rate. Figure 7a shows all comparisons, Figure 7bshows only comparisons using the avoided burden (0/100) recycling
allocation method, and Figure 7c shows only comparisons between
recyclable packaging and packaging that is not recyclable. Ratios reflect
the result for packaging that is recycled divided by the result for
packaging of a different material that is not recycled, recycled at a lower
rate, or not recyclable. Thus ratios <1 indicate recycled packaging
performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive
number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates recycled packaging
performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative numberof comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisonswith ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful
differences. Light green and light red represent counts of comparisonswith ratios 0.75-1.0 and 1.0-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the
net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. thenumber of dark green minus dark red comparisons. All panels sorted by
net result of comparisons from panel a.

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Toniolo and colleagues (2013) compared similar trays used for packaging sliced meat across thefollowing scenarios: a recyclable tray that is recycled at a rate of 33.5 percent and a tray that is
not recyclable. The recyclable tray is composed of a mono-material film, while the nonrecyclable tray is composed of a multilayer higher barrier co-extruded film. They find therecyclable tray performs better in marine eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, and marine
ecotoxicity potentials and results for other metrics are inconclusive (ratios between 0.88 and 1with most between 0.95 and 1). These results are driven by the avoided burdens from recycling
the single layer tray, as impacts during production and use of both trays are similar.
Cleary (2013) compared five types of one-liter wine packages: single-use conventional glass
bottles, lightweight glass bottles, virgin PET bottles, aseptic carton, and refillable glass bottles.
The study also compared four types of 750-ml spirit packages, made from the same materials as
the wine containers except for aseptic cartons, which are not used for spirits. All the glass bottle
options are recycled at 69 percent, PET bottles are recycled at a rate of 34 percent, and the fiber
portion of the aseptic carton, which is three-quarters of the carton by mass, are recycled at a rateof 29 percent. They assume the materials not recycled are landfilled. Refillable glass bottles are
assumed to be refilled 14 times and have return rates like Ontario, Canada’s deposit returnsystem for refillable beer containers (99 percent). Our review compares the glass containers
against the PET bottles and the aseptic cartons which are recycled at a lower rate. Refillable
glass bottles resulted in the lowest environmental impacts for all 11 impact categories.
Sensitivity analysis on number of reuses indicates that with ten refills, emissions from refillable
glass bottles would increase but they would remain lower than for the single use options. For the
single use packaging options, recyclable glass bottles have higher impacts than the less-recycled
PET bottles and aseptic cartons for all categories except water depletion and freshwater
ecotoxicity. In the case of water depletion, the recyclable glass bottle shows a benefit comparedto the aseptic carton, while in the case of freshwater ecotoxicity the glass bottle shows a benefit
compared to the PET bottle. This is because 57-68 percent of all impacts occur during material
production, depending on the material. The avoided burdens from glass bottle recycling are notenough to offset production impacts. For example, the GHG emissions avoided by recycling
reduce impacts by approximately 10 percent for the single use glass and PET bottles. In otherwords, the difference in impacts between recycled and virgin glass production is less significant
than the difference between glass production and production of the PET bottles and aseptic
cartons. We also noted that impacts were correlated with packaging weight.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (2008) performed an analysis of wine bottle closures made from 65
percent primary and 35 percent secondary aluminum, virgin LDPE/HDPE plastic, and cork
stoppers. The analysis considered all the components necessary for sealing 0.75-liter waterbottles. Aluminum closures are modeled as recycled at a rate of 32 percent while the plastic
closures are recycled at a rate of 19 percent and the cork stoppers are landfilled. Life cycle
results show that the aluminum closures perform considerably worse than the cork or plastic for
GWP, acidification potential, and smog; similarly, for eutrophication potential and primaryenergy use; and better for water consumption. Aluminum and plastic closures perform similar
during their production phases, while cork requires significantly more water during production.
Aluminum closures result lower water consumption impacts during the bottling stage due to theuse of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) covers by both cork and plastic closures, which are not used forthe aluminum closures.
43

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Humbert and colleagues (2009) compared glass and plastic baby food jars. The authors assumed
the glass jars are recycled at a rate of 86 percent, while the plastic jars are recycled at a rate of 40
percent, and the unrecycled material is landfilled. The more highly recycled glass jars perform
worse in the global warming, eutrophication, ozone depletion, human toxicity, ecotoxicity,mineral depletion, and land use categories. Results for acidification, smog formation, and energy
demand also suggest the glass jars perform worse although the ratios for these comparisonsrepresent marginal differences (1.00 – 1.25). The better performance for plastic jars despite theirlower recycling rate is due to lower impacts from producing plastic and reduction of mass which
reduces distribution impacts to the lighter packaging.
Pasqualino and colleagues (2011) compared the GWP and energy demand of aluminum cans,glass bottles, PET bottles, HDPE bottles, and aseptic cartons of various sizes for juice, beer, andwater. In Figure 7 (panel a) we include 104 comparisons between containers that are recycled at
EOL and containers (of the same volume) made of a different material that are assumed to belandfilled or incinerated at EOL. This is possible because the study includes recycling,
landfilling, and incineration scenarios for each material. The authors assumed high recycling
rates: 93 percent for aluminum, 88 percent for glass, 76 percent for PET and HDPE, and 75
percent for aseptic cartons. The results of these comparisons are mixed. Glass containers that arerecycled perform worse when compared with aseptic cartons, PET and HDPE of the same
volume that are landfilled or incinerated (ratios > 1.25). Likewise, aluminum cans and HDPE
containers that are recycled perform worse than landfilled aseptic cartons (ratios > 1.25) due tothe high energy requirements for aluminum reprocessing. However, recycled aluminum performs
better than incinerated aseptic carton and considerably better than landfilled or incinerated PET
containers (ratios <0.75). In most cases where recycled materials perform worse than materials
that are landfilled or incinerated, the recycled packaging is also heavier. On the other hand, PET
bottles and aseptic cartons that are recycled always result in significantly reduced environmental
impacts when compared to landfilled glass or aluminum containers (80 comparisons with ratios<0.75).

The benefit of recyclable packaging depends on its role in reducing production of primarymaterial
Recyclability is beneficial to the extent it displaces production of more energy intensive primarymaterial. In the recycled content review, we found that for most LCA metrics, secondary(recycled) material generally has lower impacts than the same material produced from primaryfeedstocks. This is mainly due to the smaller amount of energy required to produce secondary
materials compared with primary materials. The exceptions are impacts related to features of thesecondary material supply chain, such as eutrophication and water use impacts associated withwashing and wastewater emissions from the reclamation process of PET for recycling.
However, an increase in the recycling of a material does not necessarily result in an equal
displacement of primary material. An increase in supply of a material may cause the market priceof that material to fall – and the lower price can result in increased demand, although notnecessarily in an equal amount. Indeed, recycling may serve to increase overall material use by

44

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareproviding industry with lower-cost feedstocks, depending on the price elasticities of the materials
involved.
Several LCA studies have demonstrated that the displacement of primary material production isdependent on market factors and that the amount and type of primary material displaced are
critical in determining the environmental benefits of recycling, and by extension, recyclability.
(Ekvall 2000b; Frees 2008; Gala, Raugei, and Fullana-i-Palmer 2015; Geyer et al. 2016; Zink,
Geyer, and Startz 2016). For example, Zink and colleagues (2016) show that different
assumptions about displacement rate have the potential to reverse the outcome of an LCA.
Ekvall (2000b) proposes a model for open loop recycling that includes the price elasticities ofsupply and demand of secondary materials to estimate the changes in the market due to theintroduction of additional secondary material. Gala and colleagues (2015) propose a formula that
calculates the environmental credits of material recovery in waste management by assuming
displacement of the market average mix of primary and secondary materials currently in use.
This approach is like the way avoided burdens from electricity production are estimated based on
the local grid mix. Zink and colleagues (2016) predict changes in primary and secondary
material using price elasticities to estimate responses to price changes. They find that whendisplacement is low, recycling may even increase environmental impacts.
There are relatively few LCA studies that attempt to estimate the displacement of primarymaterial production. This is not surprising, as the ISO 14040:2006 LCA guidelines do notconsider market factors within the scope of an LCA study (with the exception using economic
allocation when defining the outputs of multi-product processes). The lack of current, regional ormarket-specific information regarding the substitution of primary with secondary material fordifferent types of packaging materials also make their inclusion in LCA studies difficult. The
availability of market mix or price elasticity information varies according to which material isbeing considered, and even if available may be highly uncertain. For example, elasticities for asingle material fluctuate depending on the location or might have changed significantly since thedata was collected. Ekvall (2000b) reports that elasticities of old paper and newsprint might
range from 0.06 to 1.7, which greatly influences the results of LCA studies of paper products.
Due to these difficulties in using market data, the shared burden (or 50/50) allocation approach
may be used when one-to-one displacement of primary material is not a viable assumption.
Ekvall (2000b) suggests that the 50/50 allocation method results in a rough approximation of thecase when 50 percent of recycled material replaces virgin material, and 50 percent replaces otherrecycled material. This effectively means that only 50 percent of the recycled material displaces
primary production. This suggests that the comparisons that use the 50/50 allocation method
included in Figure 7 (panel a), mixed with avoided burden comparisons, may represent a better
estimate of market conditions than the purely avoided burden comparisons in Figure 7b.

Results are mixed for study that estimated the displacement of primary material production
We identified only one LCA study that provided quantitative comparative results for packaging
and that considered the role of market effects in determining the amount of primary material
displaced. This study is discussed below (Meylan and colleagues, 2014), but is not included in
the comparative figures as it does not present environmental results in a way that allows a
45

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warestraightforward mapping to conventional impact assessment categories. However, the inclusionof market effects by Meylan and colleagues (2014) allow their results to highlight the tradeoffs
between environmental and economic considerations for recycling of packaging. Additionally,
two other studies that estimate primary material displacement, but which do not pertain
specifically to packaging (Frees, 2008; Muñoz and colleagues, 2004), are also discussed in thefollowing section.
Meylan and colleagues performed a two-part study on MSW in Switzerland and focused onwaste glass-packaging. Part I of the study develops several future states to which the current
MSW situation could transition to, based on a historical analysis of drivers that shaped the Swiss
waste glass-packaging disposal system (Meylan and colleagues, 2013). This analysis resulted in
18 scenarios, which are described as combinations of overarching goals for MSW, policies andfees adopted to achieve those goals, glass cullet collection and processing schemes, internalmarket conditions, and external constraints. The 18 scenarios can be grouped into three maincategories: 1) all cullet is exported to foreign (European) glass packaging factories; 2) all cullet
is domestically downcycled into foam glass; and 3) all cullet is either recycled back to glass
packaging, or downcycled to foam glass (high grade downcycling) or to sand substitute (lowgrade downcycling). The scenarios within each category share vary in the specific collection
schemes, recycling rates, and policy objectives. In part II Meylan and colleagues (2014)
performed a hybrid LCA analysis of the scenarios resulting from part I. The life cycle inventory
used is based on a national Swiss input-output (IO) model, which was disaggregated andcomplemented with additional data sources to create custom economic sectors to describe waste
glass-packaging disposal. The IO approach allows modeling of internal Swiss demand, imports
and exports of waste glass-packaging, and provides both economic and environmental impact
estimates. The impact estimates obtained from this model are compared to the MSW situation in2009 (base year for the studies).
There are three main takeaways from these studies regarding the recyclability of waste glasspackaging. First, from a policy perspective, part I of the study concluded that financial incentives
set by regulations to achieve specific waste disposal goals (such as favoring recycling overdowncycling) can be counteracted by constraints outside of the policy makers’ control. These
constraints can be part of the waste glass-packaging disposal system (e.g., costs of waste glasspackaging collection) or external to it (e.g., commodity prices). Secondly, from an environmental
perspective, part II indicates that scenarios where glass cullet undergoes domestic high grade
downcycling result in the lowest impacts; foreign low grade downcycling results in the highest
impacts; and 100 percent closed-loop recycling of glass-packaging is in between these scenarios,
though still better than the Swiss situation at the time of the study. Domestic downcycling ofglass-packaging into foam glass results in lower environmental impacts than recycling back into
glass-packaging due to the lower energy required for downcycling, as well as the displacementof domestic extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation production. Finally, although 100 percent
recycling of the glass cullet does not produce the best environmental results, it produces thehighest gross value-added scenarios, as recycling produces higher value-added than downcycling
and no XPS production is displaced. Indeed, only the scenarios with recycling and high grade
downcycling achieve higher value-added results than the baseline situation. These results
illustrate the interconnections between environmental and economic considerations for recycling
waste glass-packaging, as well as the limits of policy in shaping MSW transitions in Switzerland.
46

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Results are mixed for studies that consider recyclable materials, but which do not focus
specifically on packaging
Frees (2008) used a method similar to the one proposed by Ekvall (2000b) to evaluate thedisplacement of primary aluminum due to aluminum scrap. This study concludes that price ofaluminum scrap is inelastic given that secondary material covers only 30-40 percent ofaluminum demand and thus there must be primary production. As the market is constrained by
the availability of secondary material, the study suggests that the avoided burden method withfull displacement of primary material is appropriate for aluminum recycling. This is anoteworthy finding since it bolsters the results reported by LCA studies that use the avoided
burden method for analyzing the environmental impacts of aluminum production and recycling
without including a market analysis, such as Nieron and Olsen (2016).
Muñoz and colleagues (2004) analyzed different integrated waste management system scenarios
for the Gipuzkoa department in Spain, which assumed a decrease in landfilling and increase inrecycling of the disposed materials. This management system includes recycling of different
types of materials for which they assumed different displacement ratios. For example, they
assumed a 1:0.75 ratio of recovered paper to displaced virgin pulp, and ratios of 1:0.078,
1:0.031, and 1:0.022 for displacement of mineral nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium in
fertilizers. For materials where information was lacking, such as plastic and metal wastes, theyused a 1:1 displacement ratios. For all waste management system scenarios that included
recycling, a net environmental benefit was observed, despite high energy consumption forcollection and transport of some materials. However, and in contrast with the finding by Frees(2008) for aluminum, the authors explicitly note that environmental benefits may beoverestimated for those materials which assumed 1:1 displacement ratios.

When assuming one to one displacement of primary material, recycling is generally preferable tolandfilling and incineration for a given packaging material
When comparing recyclable packaging that is recycled at its end-of-life with packaging of thesame material that is not recycled or packaging of the same material that is recycled at a lower
rate, 11 studies were found and a total of 438 comparisons were made across two or moreenvironmental impact categories. The packaging that is recycled or has a higher recycling rate at
the end-of-life had lower impacts (ratio <0.75) in 299 comparisons (68 percent); marginal
decrease in impact (ratio between 0.75 and 1) in 71 comparisons (16 percent); marginal increasein impacts (ratios between 1 and 1.25) in 30 comparisons (7 percent); and higher impacts (ratio >1.25) in 32 comparisons (7 percent), with six comparisons resulting in a ratio equal to 1.0.
Six studies included in this section of the review contained comparisons between materials thatare recycled, and the same materials being exclusively landfilled or incinerated (Ferreira et al.,2017; Hottle, Bilec, & Landis, 2017; Rossi et al., 2015; Xie, Qiao, Sun, & Zhang, 2013;
Pasqualino, Meneses, & Castells, 2011; Marion, 2005). These comparisons encompass various
types of packaging materials, but overall results indicate that recycling generally performs better
than either landfilling or incineration for the same packaging material for most impact categories.
These results are shown in Figure 8. In most cases, this is because the credits from avoided
primary production due to the recycling of the material are often greater than the energy credits
47

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareassigned to incineration of the material and greater than the zero credits assigned to landfilling. A
few examples of these patterns are discussed below, as well as some exceptions.

-20

0

Number of Comparisons
20
40
60

80

Figure 8. Recyclable packaging that is recycled vs. recyclable packaging of the same material
that is not recycled or recycled at a lower rate.

Global Warming
Fossil Energy
Human Toxicity
Ecotoxicity
Eutrophication
Land Occupation
Acidification
Smog
PM Formation
Mineral Depletion
Ozone Depletion
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation

Figure 8. Recyclable packaging that is recycled vs. recyclable packaging of the samematerial that is not recycled or recycled at a lower rate. Ratios reflect the result for the packaging
that is recycled divided by the result for the packaging of the same material that is not recycled or recycled at alower rate. Thus ratios <1 indicate more highly recycled packaging performs better and are shown in the figure ingreen as the positive number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates more highly recycled packaging performs
worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent
counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light
green and light red represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure issorted by the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus
dark red comparisons.

Hottle and colleagues (2017) compare recycling to landfilling of six different packaging
materials: PET, HDPE, LDPE, bioPET, bioHDPE, and bioLDPE. For all materials, GWP andenergy impacts are lower for recycling over landfilling, due to the offsets of virgin material
production assigned to recycling. However, environmental impact ratios are greater than one forthe acidification, eutrophication, smog, and ozone depletion categories for recycling as compared
to landfilling of these materials. In this study, the recycling of these materials is modeled as
being shipped to China; this represents 610 km and 11,600 km of ground and ocean freightertransport, respectively, as that this was the actual path taken for these materials given they were
produced and used in Arizona. The transportation of these packaging materials overseas is themain cause of the high impacts in the previously mentioned categories as compared tolandfilling. Sensitivity analysis on shipping distance, which assumes there is no ocean transportand materials are recycled within the ground transportation distance, results in significant
reductions in emissions for recycling, such that it is either comparable to or better thanlandfilling in the previously mentioned impact categories.
Marion (2005) compares mixed disposal of paperboard packaging waste (43 percent landfill, 4
percent incineration with energy recovery, 53 percent recycling, which represents current
disposal methods at the time of study publication) with both 100 percent landfilling and 100
48

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
percent incineration disposal. The comparisons for this study show that the disposal withrecycling is slightly preferable to landfilling (ratio <1) for the smog and energy demand
categories, highly preferable for GWP (ratio <0.75), and comparable in the acidification,
eutrophication and ecotoxicity categories (ratios ~1). However, recycling does not perform better
than incineration in this study. The mixed recycling option performs slightly worse (ratio >1)
than the incineration option for global warming, acidification, eutrophication, smog, and energy
demand categories, and considerably worse for the ecotoxicity category (ratio ~1.8). Thesefavorable results for incineration are due to the credits generated through energy recovery fromthe incineration process. These credits result in avoided burdens from other electricity generation
using the average grid mix. A sensitivity analysis where renewable energy sources are modeled
results in the mixed disposal option that includes recycling being preferable in all categories tothe 100 percent incineration option.
Xie and colleagues (2013) consider two scenarios for recycling of aseptic packaging composedof 75 percent fiber, 20 percent PE, and 5 percent aluminum foil. In the first scenario, only thefiber portion is recycled, while the rest is landfilled; the second scenario considers separation andrecycling all three components. These two recycling scenarios are compared against landfillingand incineration of the entire packaging. The recycling scenarios perform better than landfill inmost categories except acidification and GWP where the energy required for recycling process
for the carton leads to higher emissions than the landfilling of the entire material. In contrast,
recycling performs better than incineration of the packaging only in the land use, mineraldepletion, and primary energy demand categories, while performing worse in the global
warming, acidification, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity categories, because of the higher credits
assigned to incineration for avoided energy consumption than to recycling for avoided primarymaterial displacement.
When assuming one to one displacement of primary material, a higher recycling rate is
generally preferable for a given packaging material unless the secondary material recovery andrecycling becomes very inefficient at higher recovery rates.
Five studies quantitatively analyzed the effects of different recycling rates for the same materials(Marion 2005; Mourad et al. 2008; Franklin Associates 2009; Niero and Olsen 2016; Oliveiraand Magrini 2017). These studies were used to compare the environmental impacts of higher
versus lower recycling rates presented by each study, for example Marion (2005) compares a
recycling rate of 80 percent against lower recycling rates of 35, 53, 60, and 70 percent, one at atime. In general, higher recycling rates are preferable to lower recycling rates for the same
packaging material.
Mourad and colleagues (2008) and Marion (2005) focus their analysis on packaging mademostly from paper (aseptic packaging and paperboard packaging waste, respectively). Mourad
and colleagues compare aseptic packaging at recycling rates of 2 and 22 percent for the global
warming, human toxicity, energy demand, water depletion, and land occupation categories.
Marion has scenarios for 35, 53, 60, 70, and 80 percent recycling and results for the global
warming, acidification, eutrophication, smog, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, and energy demand
categories. In both studies, the portion of waste not recycled is landfilled. The comparisons basedon both these studies resulted in ratios between 0.75 and 1 for all impact categories and recycling
rates. The only exception was for GWP for the comparison in Marion between 80 percent and 35
49

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
percent recycled paperboard waste, where the ratio was 0.7. Ratios vary both between recycling
rates and categories, but in broad terms, every 20 percent increase in paper recycling rate
corresponds to approximately 10 percent improvement in most impact categories, withdiminishing returns as recycling rates increase.
Oliveria and colleagues (2017) analyzed various disposal options for HDPE based lubricant oilplastic containers in Brazil which combined landfilling, incineration, and recycling in different
amounts. Four scenarios were compared: one where 50 percent of the material was recycled andthe remaining 50 percent landfilled; another where 50 percent of the material was recycled andthe remaining 50 percent incinerated with energy recovery; a third scenario with a mix of 16
percent recycling, 68 percent landfilling, and 16 percent incineration; and a fourth scenario witha mix of 16 percent recycling and 84 percent landfilling. This study considered all the impact
categories except water consumption. The two disposal options with 50 percent recycling
performed considerably better than the disposal scenarios with lower recycling rates (ratios<0.75). As with previous studies, these results are driven by avoided burdens in the recycling
scenarios; particularly for global warming and ecotoxicity in the 50/50 recycling/landfillingscenario, and for land occupation, human toxicity, and eutrophication categories for the 50/50
recycling/incineration scenario.
Finally, Niero and Olsen (2016) compared various recycling rates for aluminum beverage cans,using both closed-loop (i.e., can-to-can) and open-loop (i.e., mixed aluminum packaging-to-can)recycling pathways for the cans for a span of 30 life cycle loops. For each pathway, rates of 75
percent recycling were compared against rates of 55 and 65 percent. The comparisons between
the 75 and 65 percent recycling rates result in ratios between 1.0 and 0.75 for the GWP andenergy depletion categories, while the comparison between the 75 and 55 percent recycling rates
result in lower impacts for global warming, energy depletion, and human toxicity (ratios <0.75).
Additionally, impacts from closed-loop recycling are slightly lower for most categories, withGWP being considerably lower. However, while overall impacts decrease at higher recycling
rates, additional materials (such as manganese) need to be added in the recycling process at
higher amounts per kilogram of material recycled, which imposes a limit to the rate thataluminum cans can be recycled.
Taken in aggregate, the results from the comparisons of different recycling rates show thathigher recycling rates result in lower environmental impacts for the material recycled. However,the various materials’ environmental impacts seem to benefit differently from the increased rates,with aluminum and HDPE showing greater improvements than paperboard packaging for similar
recycling rate increases. The main reason for these results are the avoided burdens for recycling,with higher recycling rates credited with higher avoided burdens. It is important to note thatthese comparisons usually assume that the material is transported to adequate recycling facilities
and that enough of these facilities are available for the different materials to be recycled at
different rates. Additionally, not all the studies consider material losses during collection or the
possibility of contamination of the recyclate. These issues are considered below.

50

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
One-to-one displacement of primary material production is not a realistic assumption forrecyclable packaging materials.
Studies summarized in the preceding discussion about the benefits of recyclable packaging often
assume one-to-one displacement of primary material via recycling activities. One-to-one
displacement of primary material by recycled material is likely not a realistic assumption, yet as
demonstrated by the studies presented in this section, this assumption is common in theliterature. Results of studies that assume 100 percent displacement of primary material byrecycled material should in most cases be considered a best-case scenario for the materials
analyzed. While optimistic, these results can provide an estimate of the best possible reductions
in environmental impacts that recycling of different materials could achieve. Besides market
dynamics, there are other obstacles that often prevent recycled materials from achieving 100
percent displacement of primary material. Some of these limitations are discussed below.
Collection of recyclable material. For secondary material production to occur, used andrecyclable material must be collected, sorted, and transported to material recycling or
reprocessing facilities. Many of these items are collected through municipal recycling programs:
about 94 percent of the population in the U.S. has access to some type of recycling program,which can be curb side pickup, drop-off, or both (Resource Recycling Systems 2016). Collection
schemes vary by the location and material type which can make estimates of total recovered andreprocessed materials challenging to obtain. For example, 93 percent of communities in urban
areas (population of 250,000 or greater) have access to such programs, while only 65 percent ofcommunities with a population of less than 65,000 do. Limited access to recycling programs forsmaller communities suggests that a greater share of materials that could be recycled go
uncollected in rural areas, limiting the amount of secondary material production.
Processing losses, recycling capacity and quality of recyclable materials. After collection,materials are transported to material recycling facilities. However, facilities that sort mixed
recyclables typically misdirect a fraction of materials, even if properly sorted by the generator.
For example, flattened plastic bottles may hide within layers of paper, and inadvertently be sent
to a paper mill, where they will subsequently be screened and sent to disposal. Further, not all
facilities are able to process all materials. For example, recycling programs in the U.S. arelargely available for corrugated boxes, various types of plastic containers, as well as steel,aluminum, and glass beverage containers, with coverage for these materials exceeding 60 percentof the population. On the other hand, recycling programs for expanded PS are available to lessthan 20 percent of the population, depending on the specific product (Resource Recycling
Systems 2016). The overall recycling rates in the U.S. for selected recyclable materials is shownin Figure 9. These are the rates estimated at the end-user or export market, meaning the materials
are actually recycled. It is also important to note that the U.S. exports materials to othercountries, so that material not recycled domestically due to low prices or a lack of recycling
capacity can be processed elsewhere. Indeed, over 2 million metric tons of waste plastics were
exported in 2011 for processing in other countries, with over 80 percent of these exports going to
China (Velis 2014). This can affect the impacts of recycling such that other disposal methods areenvironmentally preferable, as shown by the comparisons from Hottle and colleagues (2017). In
addition, the practice of exporting recovered materials for possible secondary sorting prior tousing them for new products may have implications to impacts areas such as plastic marine
debris as discussed in the Plastic Pollution in Marine Environments section.
51

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Fate of Containers & Packaging in MSW
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Corrugated Cardboard
Steel Packaging
HDPE Bottles
Glass Wine & Liquor Bottles
Aluminum Packaging
Glass Beer & Soft Drink Bottles
PET Bottles & Jars
Wood Packaging
Non-Corrugated Paper Packaging
Plastic Bags, Sacks, Wraps
Other Plastic Containers
Other Glass Bottles & Jars
Other Plastic Packaging
Recycled

Combusted w/ Energy Recovery

Landfilled

Figure 9. Recycling rates for packaging materials, 2014 U.S. average (U.S. EPA Office ofResource Conservation and Recovery 2016).
Another factor that influences the market for recyclable materials is the quality of the materials
themselves. Recycling facilities strictly control the amount of contamination in a secondary
feedstock. Thus, the level of contamination introduced during collection affects the market forsecondary feedstocks. The markets for secondary feedstocks are also affected by national
regulations and trade policies. This is currently the case for plastic wastes, where new Chinese
import policies have limited imports of post-consumer plastic, considerably reducing the market
for these materials. As a result, plastic packaging in the U.S. that was previously exported to be
reprocessed could instead be landfilled or incinerated, at least for the short term, while newexport markets or additional domestic reprocessing capacities may take some time to beestablished.
Summary – recyclable packaging
Results of comparing packaging made from different materials suggest that packaging weightand material type considerations are a better predictor of environmental impacts than theattribute of recyclability. Furthermore, the environmental benefits of recycled materials are
dependent on the amount of primary product they displace. Market factors such as priceelasticities and material constraints play important roles in determining how much primarymaterial is displaced, as do non-market factors such as collection schemes and the quality ofrecycled material. While several methods have recently been described to more accurately
estimate primary material displacement, historically their use in LCA has been limited, andparticularly limited in LCA studies of packaging. However, the studies that explicitly included
52

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Waremarket-based displacement support the notion that one-to-one avoided burden assumption isusually not accurate. Rather, the one-to-one avoided burden assumption should be considered abest-case scenario given that materials deteriorate functionally over repeated reprocessing cycles.
Thus, while the studies identified indicate recycling generally results in fewer environmental
impacts than landfilling or incineration, and that higher recycling rates are generally preferable tolower recycling rates when comparing different recycling rates for the same material, at present
the LCA literature is inconclusive regarding the benefits of recyclability given differences in
upstream impacts for functionally equivalent materials, market conditions and primary material
displacement rates.
It should be noted that recyclability has the potential to be environmentally beneficial in otheraspects in addition to the impact categories compared in this section. For example, in
communities with inadequate systems for waste disposal, recycling may reduce the amount ofplastics that end up in marine environments. However, these aspects are not traditionallymeasured by LCA studies and as such are not included in the scope of this review.

Biobased Packaging
Scope
Biobased packaging made from renewable feedstocks can be compostable or recyclable
independent from the fact that they are biobased. The following section is focused on comparing
biobased and fossil-based materials rather than their ability to be recycled, composted, or containrecycled materials. Among the 17 LCA studies identified which included life cycle impact
results, the number of impact categories assessed varied widely between one and 17 within theliterature, with the median number of impact categories addressed being five. These studies
yielded a total of 102 comparisons between biobased and fossil materials.
Together Table 3 and Figure 10 provide a summary of the scope of the studies offering life cycle
comparisons between biobased and other packaging options including coverage of environmental
impact categories as well as the system boundaries and materials evaluated.
Most of the studies are limited in scope to cradle-to-gate impacts, only four of the 17 studies
include end-of-life materials management (Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2017; Liptow and Tillman
2012; Madival et al. 2009; Shen, Worrell, and Patel 2012). The omission of end-of-life
management of biobased materials is important as many of these packaging materials are also
compostable or involve different recycling considerations than conventional materials, andhighlights a key area for future investigation (Flanigan, Frischknecht, and Montalbo 2013).

53

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 3. Scope of studies included in the biobased packaging comparisons.

1 m2TurkeyCML-IA baseline v 3

Groot, 2010

1,000 kgThailand

CML, IPCC

Hermann, 2010

Polymers/biopolymers
used for packaging
production
Food packaging film

1 m2

EuropeCML 2 baselinexx

Detzel, 2013

Various30 g / 15 gGermany

Several 1xx

Liptow, 2012

Polymers/biopolymers
used for packaging
production

1 kg LDPE

BrazilInventory basedxxx

Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

54

x

x
x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x*

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x
x

x

x

x
x
x

x
x

x

Land Use

Packaging film

x

x

x

Water Consumption

Günkaya, 2016

x

x

x

x

x

x

Mineral Depletion

ReCiPe v1.0

Fossil Energy Depletion

US

Ecotoxicity

1,000 kg

Human Health, Toxicity

Chemical precursor

Human Health, Respiratory

Lin, 2015

Smog

x

Ozone Depletion

TRACI v 2.1

x

Eutrophication, Marine

US

Eutrophication, Freshwater

1 kg

x

Acidification

Beverage bottles

x

x

x

x

x

Global Warming

Chen, 2016x

x

End of Lifex

Result Categoriesx

Product Use

IMPACT 2002+

x

Cradle-to-Gate

US, Europe,
Middle East

Polyester

1,000 x 1lb
containers

Paper

Madival, 2009

x

Rayon

LCIA Method
TRACI v 2.1

Plastic Precursors

Geography
US

Boundary

TPS

Functional Unit
1 kg

PS

x

Packaging TypePolymers/biopolymers
used for packaging
production
Strawberries

PP

LDPE

x

PLA

HDPE

x

PHA

PET

Author and Year
Hottle, 2017

PE

Materialsxxx

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 3. Scope of studies included in the biobased packaging comparisons, continued.

EuropeSeveral 1

Bohlman, 2004

Yogurt cups

1,000 kg

US

Inventory based

Percent of Total

x

12

41

12

18

Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

55

6

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

53

12

x
x

x

x

x

x
29

6

12

6

6

6

100

x

x

x

x

x

Land Use

1 kg

x

x

Water Consumption

Beverage bottles

xMineral Depletion

Shen, 2012

x

x

x

Fossil Energy Depletion

CML 2 baselinexEcotoxicity

Thailandx

Human Health, Toxicity

Food boxx

Human Health, Respiratory

CML 2 baseline

x

x

Smog

Thailand

Suwanmanee, 2012

1,000 x 250ml
drinking waterbottles
10,000 boxesx

Ozone Depletion

TRACI

Eutrophication, Marine

US

Eutrophication, Freshwater

1 kg resin

Papong, 2014

Polymers/biopolymers
used for packaging
production
Water bottles

Kim, 2005

Acidificationx

Global Warming

IMPACT 2002+x

End of LifeUS

x

Result Categoriesx

Product Use

1 kg

Akanuma, 2014

x

Cradle-to-GatexPolyester

IMPACT 2002+

Paper

Europe, India,
Brazil

Rayon

1 kg

Plastic Precursors

Polymers/biopolymers
used for packaging
production
Chemical precursor

Boundary

TPS

Tsiropoulos, 2015

PS

LCIA Method
ReCiPe 2008, TRACIPP

Geography
US

PLA

Functional Unit
1 kg

PHA

Packaging TypeChemical precursor

LDPE

Author and Year
Nuss, 2013

HDPE

PET

PE

Materials

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x
6

24

94

76

76

71

6

59

29

53

29

53

0

18

24

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Result Categories

Boundary

Materials

0
PE
PET
HDPE
LDPE
PHA
PLA
PP
PS
TPS
Plastic Precursors
Rayon
Paper
Polyester
Cradle-to-Gate
Product Use
End of Life
Global Warming
Acidification
Eutrophication, Freshwater
Eutrophication, Marine
Ozone Depletion
Smog
Human Health, Respiratory
Human Health, Toxicity
Ecotoxicity
Fossil Energy Depletion
Mineral Depletion
Water Consumption
Land Use

2

4

6Count of Studies (Total of 17)
8
10

12

14

16

12%

41%
12%
18%

6%
53%

12%
29%
6%

12%
6%
6%
6%
100%

6%
24%
94%

76%
76%
71%
6%
59%

29%
53%
29%

53%
0%

18%
24%

Figure 10. Scope of studies included in the biobased packaging comparisons.

Biobased materials do not always provide life cycle impact reductions in categories
generally associated with chemical industries
Biobased packaging is often believed to be associated with benefits for GWP and fossil fueldepletion but, as seen in Figure 11, this is not always the case. The comparisons which lead tomeaningful differences for these categories are mixed and a large portion of the comparisonswere inconclusive. This range of results can be associated with factors like the crop, climate andgeography, and processing technologies used to convert agricultural feedstocks into packaging
materials. This was highlighted by Yates and Barlow (2013) who found that producing
biopolymer feedstocks requires a significant amount of fossil fuel for agricultural operations andinputs such as fertilizers and pesticides as well as milling, fermentation, and other conversion
processes.
Suwanmanee and colleagues (2013) found that land use change associated with corn andcassava, drove the GWP and AP of PLA and PLA/starch boxes to exceed those of polystyrene.
However, they did not include the flow of CO2 that is sequestered during the growing of
biobased feedstocks used in PLA or released during decomposition or incineration. As a counter
56

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
example, Papong and colleagues (2014) found that replacing fossil fuels, used for heating in
cassava-based PLA production, with biogas decreased the eutrophication potential and further
reduced GWP which already favored the biobased material in their study.

Figure 11. Comparisons of biobased packaging to conventional packaging of the same
polymer. Ratios reflect the result for the biobased packaging divided by the result for the conventional packaging.
Thus ratios <1 indicate biobased packaging performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive
number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates biobased packaging performs worse and are shown in the figure
in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisons with ratios<0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent countsof comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result ofcomparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red comparisons.

More difficult to interpret are the tradeoffs associated with shifting to a biobased production
pathway which results in different potential waste management pathways during end-of-life.
Figure 12 shows the mixed results associated with comparisons of conventional packaging anddissimilar biobased alternatives some of which enable composting. The graph highlights thedivergent results associated with specific materials and across comparisons. Although thecomparison of production for biobased and conventional materials can be independent from endof-life pathways for those materials, many biobased products are explicitly advertised forfeatures associated with biodegradability or compostability. If biobased packaging and or foodservice ware enables new end-of-life options or eliminates other options, like recycling, it isworth consideration.

57

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Figure 12. Comparisons of biobased packaging to conventional packaging of a different
polymer. Ratios reflect the result for the biobased packaging divided by the result for the conventional packaging.
Thus ratios <1 indicate biobased packaging performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive
number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates biobased packaging performs worse and are shown in the figure
in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisons with ratios<0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent countsof comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result ofcomparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red comparisons.
Results are sorted in the same order as Figure 11 to facilitate comparison.

Although few LCA studies have addressed waste management for biopolymers, the choice ofwaste management can shift impacts of biobased products significantly enough to tip thefindings in favor of one type of material over another (Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2013, 2017;
Yates and Barlow 2013) as discussed below. Of the studies that model the end-of-life forbiobased packaging materials, four waste pathways were analyzed: recycling, composting,incineration, and landfilling.
Recycling results in significant life cycle impact reductions for fossil-based resins. Thesebenefits could extend to biopolymers if they are identical to polymers that can be recycled inexisting collection systems or, in the case of biopolymers like PLA, recycling technologies canbe scaled to warrant the collection and processing efforts. For example, Hottle and colleagues(2017) found that biobased PET, HDPE, and LDPE achieved negative fossil fuel impacts,
assuming recycling of these polymers offsets virgin fossil-based resins used to manufacture new
products.
Rossi and colleagues (2015) found that mechanical recycling leads to the greatest reductions ofenvironmental impacts, whereas composting was less favorable in some categories whencomparing end-of-life options for TPS and PLA. The environmental benefits of mechanicalrecycling are a result of offsetting the impacts associated with production using virgin materials.
Composting, anaerobic digestion, and incineration resulted in similar generation of GWP; in thecomposting scenario, TPS, PLA, and the subsequent compost material degrade almost
completely (~93 percent) over a one-hundred-year time frame, though this assumption is notapplied in all LCAs evaluating composting. The compost material was found to have low levels
58The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareof nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, and are therefore was considered inadequate
replacements for fertilizer while the other waste management options generate offsets due toenergy production (Rossi et al. 2015).
Growing and processing agricultural feedstocks required for biobased manufacturing
drives increased acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity, and land use impacts
Agricultural inputs for the biobased material feedstocks appear to be the primary driver ofincreased environmental impacts, with the additional production-related energy and conversion
technologies as a secondary driver. Trends across studies indicate increased cradle-to-gate
impacts for categories such as acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity, and land use that arelinked to agricultural practices for biobased feedstocks. This is illustrated by Figure 11, which
compares studies that evaluated the same material across biobased and fossil-based production
pathways.
Hermann and colleagues found that land and agricultural inputs used to produce biobasedmaterials can often be identified as the drivers of elevated environmental impacts (2013).
Findings from Chen and colleagues (2016) in a comparative LCA of PET and bioPET reinforce
this concept, finding that “biomass feedstock extraction and preprocessing are likely more
emission-intensive than corresponding fossil refinery processes, either due to the extra energy
required for agricultural operations, or because of the production and application of required
chemicals.”Some assessments included scenarios evaluating different biobased feedstocks or different
conversion technologies for biobased materials. The studies evaluating cellulosic feedstocks,
associated with lower impact waste materials or perennial crops, found that although the impacts
associated with growing the feedstocks was lower, the additional energy required to convert
these feedstocks to functional technical materials outweighed the benefits of using starch- orsugar-based feedstocks like corn, wheat, cassava, or sugarcane (Akanuma, Selke, and Auras
2014; Chen, Pelton, and Smith 2016; Kim and Dale 2005). For example, PTA made fromswitchgrass-based ethylene glycol and wood-based ethylene glycol had higher (sometimes
double) environmental impact comparative ratios for acidification, eutrophication, smog, andparticulate matter formation when compared to corn- and wheat-based ethylene glycol due to thesignificantly higher level of energy required to process cellulosic-based feedstocks (Chen,
Pelton, and Smith 2016). Detzel and colleagues (2013) found that a lignocellulose-based PLA
under a future production scenario which anticipates improved fermentation processes may haveslightly lower impacts than sugar beets, highlighting the potential for technologicaladvancements in biobased production.
Kim and Dale (2005) also found that the level of environmental impacts resulting from feedstock
processing can depend upon the conversion technologies used. They found that the fermentation
process used to produce PHA from corn grain had greater smog, acidification, and eutrophication
potentials than polystyrene. Conversely, these impacts were less than those of polystyrene whena combination of corn grain and stover-based PHA was assessed under an anticipated near futurescenario.

59

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareEnvironmental performance of biobased materials depends on the manufacturing andfeedstock requirements for specific materials
In addition to the broad findings across material-types, the review of literature also generated
findings specific to certain biobased packaging materials. These findings are presented below.
Biobased Polylactic Acid (PLA)As shown in Table 3, nine studies (with LCA data) compared the impacts of biobased PLA to
fossil-based products, including PS, PE, including HDPE and LDPE, PET, and PP. Six studies
evaluated PET, four evaluated PS, four evaluated PET, and two evaluated PP (Bohlmann 2004;
Detzel, Kauertz, and Derreza-Greeven 2013; Groot and Borén 2010; Hermann, Blok, and Patel
2010; Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2017; Madival et al. 2009; Papong et al. 2014; Shen, Worrell,
and Patel 2012; Suwanmanee et al. 2013).
Table 4 shows ratios resulting from the comparison of PLA and PS materials for selectenvironmental impact categories. The table shows the variation in impacts across studies and
PLA feedstocks. Acidification, eutrophication, and human health impacts are higher for PLA,
consistent with its reliance on the use of fertilizer and pesticides.

Human HealthImpacts

Smog

Ozone Depletion

Eutrophication

AuthorDetzel, 2013

Acidification

Global Warming

Table 4. Comparative LCA results for polylactic acid vs. polystyrene.

Materials
PLA (sugar beet) vs PS
0.88
2.3 1.8
0.23
1.9
PLA (ligno-cellulose) vs PS
0.69
2.1 1.4
0.15
1.7
Suwanmanee, 2013
PLA (corn grain) vs PS
35
3.0
1.5
Madival, 2009
PLA (corn grain) vs PS
1.0
1.7 1.7 1.4
1.4-1.5
Groot, 2010
PLA (sugarcane) vs PS
0.65
Red cells indicate PLA has higher impacts than PS, while green cells indicate PLA has lower impacts
than PS. The calculation of ratios is described in the Methods section.

While the study methodologies differ to the extent that LCA results could not be comparedacross studies, within studies, the type of biobased feedstock used in the PLA, for example corn,beets, or sugarcane, affected the level of environmental impacts for a given category. For
example, when comparing PLA made of beet and ligno-cellulose, Detzel and colleagues (2013)
found that the lignocellulose PLA had slightly lower environmental impacts than PLA made ofbeets. Groot and Borén (2010) found that PLA manufactured with sugarcane feedstocks havelower GHG impacts than fossil PS due in part to renewable energy derived from combustion of
the biomass remaining after sugar extraction. Papong and colleagues (2014) determined that
corn-based PLA has higher fossil fuel impacts than cassava or sugarcane-based PLA due to theincreased use of fertilizers and pesticides in corn production.

60

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Hottle and colleagues (2013) also identified tradeoffs across impact categories for PLA. When
comparing data for the bioplastics TPS and PLA with the fossil-based plastics HDPE, LDPE,
PET, PP, and PS, they found higher eutrophication and ozone depletion potentials for TPS and
PLA than any of the fossil-based alternatives. Both the eutrophication and non-carcinogenic
human health impacts for the biobased polymers were attributed to agricultural emissions ofphosphorus- and nitrogen-substances primarily due to the application of fertilizers, with theeffluent from the fermentation and distillation processes being a secondary factor for
eutrophication. The transport of fossil fuels needed to make the biobased plastic accounts forhigher rates of ozone depletion. The results in the remaining impact categories were mixed forthe biobased and fossil-based materials.
When comparing PLA and fossil-based PET, findings vary by impact category (Supporting
Information B). Madival and colleagues (2009) found PLA has lower environmental impacts
than PET across most impact categories including GWP, aquatic eutrophication, aquatic
ecotoxicity, ozone depletion, and land use but PLA had greater impacts in acidification andhuman health. Papong and colleagues (2014) found that cassava-based PLA bottles performed
better than PET bottles where global warming, fossil fuel depletion, and human toxicity wereconcerned but PLA was worse in acidification and eutrophication.
Packaging Films
Hermann and colleagues (2010) showed that laminated packaging films containing one or morebiobased packaging materials largely have greater impacts compared to fossil-based films. The
study showed that films made with various forms of PLA had generally greater environmental
impacts for eutrophication, water consumption, mineral depletion, and energy depletion, with
mixed results for GWP. Similarly, Günkaya and Banar (2016) found that biocomposite film
made from orange peel-derived pectin jelly and corn starch increased environmental impacts of
GWP, acidification, eutrophication, smog, and human toxicity compared to film made from
LDPE.
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA)
Kim and Dale (2005) found that the fermentation and recovery processes used in producing PHA
from corn grain resulted in increased environmental impacts compared to fossil-based
polystyrene (PS) for the categories of smog, acidification, and eutrophication.11 The study
showed that estimating environmental impacts using expected future technologies for processing
cellulosic feedstocks and a combination of corn grain and stover, as opposed to just grain, led to
fewer impacts than polystyrene except for eutrophication potential. PHA made from a
combination of corn grain and stover was found to have a lower GWP than PHA made from corngrain alone. Conversely, PHA made from corn grain and stover had slightly higher impacts foracidification, eutrophication, and smog (see Supporting Information B for details).

11

The comparison with PS was based on external inventories but quantitative data was not included in the Kim andDale (2005) so comparative ratios were not included for PS

61

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE)
The relative impacts of biobased HDPE and fossil HDPE vary by impact category. Tsiropoulos
and colleagues (2015) and Hottle and colleagues (2017) found that biobased HDPE had
generally lower greenhouse gas emissions and non-renewable energy use impacts than fossil
HDPE; however, Tsiropoulos found that greenhouse gas emissions decreased from 140 percent
lower than fossil HDPE (net negative due to CO2 storage) to only 20 percent lower when indirect
land use change was considered.12 In contrast, the biobased HDPE had increased impacts ofhuman health, ecotoxicity, and water consumption were concerned.
Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE)
Liptow and Tillman (2012) showed that the production of sugarcane-based LDPE compared toits fossil-based counterpart reduced the impacts of GWP and photochemical oxidation potential;
increased the eutrophication potential and required more process energy (although the major fuelsource for this energy is renewable); and marginally decreased acidification potential.. Major
contributors to the environmental impact of sugarcane LDPE are ethanol production,polymerization, and long-distance sea transport. The GWP of the sugarcane-based LDPE wasroughly half that of fossil-based LDPE. The addition of land use change associated withsugarcane production, which has a high degree of uncertainty, resulted in no meaningful
difference in GWP between the bio- and fossil-based LDPE.
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)
When comparing bioPET to fossil-based counterparts, Shen and colleagues (2012) found that
bioPET had lower impacts for GWP and non-renewable energy use compared to fossil PET. The
bioPET is not entirely derived from biobased feedstocks. The ethylene component of the bioPET
polymer is bio-based, while the terephthalate remains a fossil-based feedstock. The bioPET
derived from sugarcane had slightly lower environmental impacts than that made of corn forthese same impact categories (Shen, Worrell, and Patel 2012). Tsiropoulos and colleagues (2015)
found that bioPET production had slightly higher non-renewable energy use impacts than fossil
PET when including direct and indirect land use change, with comparative LCA ratios ofapproximately 1.0 for each impact category. For the impact categories of human health andecotoxicity, the bioPET had significantly higher impacts, with comparative LCA ratios ranging
from 8 (human health) to 13 (ecotoxicity).
Purified terephthalic acid (PTA)
Two studies evaluated several purified terephthalic acid (PTA) pathways, including those madewith corn, wheat, wood, and switchgrass (Akanuma, Selke, and Auras 2014; Chen, Pelton, andSmith 2016). PTA is combined with ethylene glycol to produce PET. The published results from
Akanuma and colleagues (2014) show increased impacts associated with biobased PTA for

12

Indirect land use change encompasses the unintended consequences of releasing more carbon emissions due
to land-use changes, such as those made for agricultural purposes to cultivate feedstocks for use in a biobasedmaterial.

62

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
acidification, eutrophication, and GWP, while fossil fuel depletion and mineral resource
depletion potentials were decreased when compared to fossil-based PTA.
p-xylenep-xylene is used to make PTA and dimethyl-terephthalate, both of which are used to make PET.
When comparing p-xylene made from fossil resources to biobased options of corn and oak, Lin(2015) found that the corn-based version of the chemical had significantly higher environmental
impacts due to the agricultural practices associated with cultivation and harvesting, regardless of
allocation method.13 At least 75 percent of the environmental impacts can be attributed toagricultural practices for the following impact categories: eutrophication, ecotoxicity, particulatematter formation, and land occupation. The lignocellulose-based oak feedstock was found to becomparable with the fossil-based p-xylene based on a single score comparison.
Summary – biobased packaging
The results of the comparative environmental impact ratios developed show that biobased
packaging materials have environmental tradeoffs compared to non-biobased counterparts.14 In
the comparisons, biobased materials performed best for GWP, although this finding is notconsistent across studies/comparisons. More than half the comparisons resulted in ratios above
1.0, marginal increase to higher impacts. This is especially important in impact categories suchas acidification and eutrophication, which saw greater impacts for nearly all comparisons; see
Figure 11 and Figure 12. This pattern of impact category tradeoffs has been identified inprevious reviews of the literature and can typically be associated with the shift from fossil toagricultural-based resources (Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2013; Miller et al. 2007; Zhang et al.
2016).
Agricultural production drove consistently meaningful differences in the acidification,
eutrophication, ecotoxicity, and land use categories when comparing packaging that has biobasedand conventional fossil-based production pathways. The potential significance of agricultural
production to these impact categories depends on the location of production as well as on
geospatial contexts such as proximity to bodies of water or baseline land use practices tounderstand the potential significance of these impacts. Several studies indicated that different
biobased feedstocks or conversion technologies have the potential to tip the findings in favor of
biobased packaging materials. The variations in results comparing biobased options highlights
the importance of assessing the specific material options for the desired application. The
conventional industries associated with packaging production are characterized by mature,developed pathways for feedstock acquisition and material production. However, much of theresearch concerning biobased materials focuses on the pursuit of improved environmental
performance through feedstock development and process improvements with potential forprocess advancements as technologies for biobased pathways mature.

13

LCA data was only provided for p-xylene made from corn and oak. Impacts for petroleum p-xylene were only
indicated in a single score summary.
14
The exception was the study performed by Hermann et al. (2010) on laminated, printed film.

63

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Understanding the scope and system boundaries considered for each study is critical so any
environmental tradeoffs s can be understood in context. The difference between biobased andconventional packaging materials is not simply a function of differing carbon pathways. The
shift from fossil to biobased alters both the upstream dynamics of feedstock acquisition and thedownstream processing required to create the final marketable product. Additionally, thematerial itself dictates the potential for packaging to be recycled or composted. Any decisions toshift to biobased materials should also consider the end-of-life options available for that specificmaterial in the context of its intended use. A shift away from recyclable materials in a system
where recycling is a feasible end-of-life pathway could eliminate a potentially better end-of-life
management option from an environmental standpoint. Only four studies evaluated included
waste management options in their impact assessment which may have significant influence on
the total life cycle impacts of these materials, so more research on this topic is needed.

Compostable Packaging
Scope
Compostable packaging degrades biologically to yield CO2, water, inorganic compounds, andbiomass while leaving no visually distinguishable remnants or unacceptable levels of toxic
residues. Our search yielded 10 LCA studies of compostable packaging, which allowed a total of
1,287 comparisons. These studies allowed for comparisons between compostable and noncompostable materials, as well as between compostable materials that are composted vs.
landfilled, incinerated, or recycled. The most common EOL disposition for all types of materials
was landfilling (included in 9 of 10 studies) followed by incineration with energy recovery (7 of
10) and recycling 5of 10). The packaging types included in the studies werecushioning/expanded packaging, sheets, wrapping films, thermoformed boxes, water bottles,
clamshell packaging, and various polymers used to make compostable packaging. The
compostable materials considered were PLA, a starch-based expanded polystyrene (EPS), TPS,
and trademarked materials such as Mater-Bi™, starch-based biopolymers, and Ingeo™ (PLAbased). Biobased PLA was the most common material, included in seven of the ten studies. All
the studies considered GWP; 70 percent included energy demand; 40 percent considered
acidification, eutrophication, and smog formation potential; and 30 percent or fewer presented
results for ozone depletion, human toxicity, ecosystem toxicity, resource depletion, water use,
and land use.
There are some additional characteristics for compostable materials, which are important toconsider when interpreting results. For example, seven of the studies state that the materials
considered meet ASTM, ISO, or certified compostable guidelines; four studies considered
impacts from land use change associated with the production of agricultural feedstocks, one ofwhich only includes land use change in the sensitivity analysis; and two studies provide thenutrient content of the compost made from packaging; . Three studies include transportation of
the packaged product and the collection of packaging waste. Table 5 and Figure 13 provide asummary of the studies included in the comparisons.
The environmental results for compostable packaging are affected by the assumptions thatstudies make when analyzing the different materials, such as system boundaries and treatment ofbiogenic CO2. It also depends on the end-of-life modeling of the packaging, since not all
64

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warescenarios involving compostable packaging assumed composting as the only waste management
strategy. The most influential factors are discussed below and summarized in Table 5 under theheading Compost-Related Sope.
System Boundaries and Life Cycle Stages
Not all studies considered the entire life cycle of the packaging product/materials in theiranalyses. Hermann and colleagues (2011) focused their analysis on the impacts of end-of-lifestage for compostable packaging exclusively. Additionally, while most studies included the
production stages, most also excluded the use phase (all except for Leejarkpai and colleagues,
2016 and Papong and colleagues, 2014). Differences in the modeling of specific life cycle stages
also affect the impact estimates. For example, waste collection and transportation distances varyby study, and their related emissions can account for as much as 11 percent of total GWPemissions for composted PLA (Hottle and colleagues 2017) to as low as 1.5 percent (Leejarkpai
and colleagues, 2016). Another factor that was not treated consistently between the studies is theaccounting of carbon uptake during biomass growth and release during composting (i.e. biogenic
carbon) in the life cycle inventory of biobased compostable products. Three studies omitted
accounting of biogenic carbon entirely, while the rest had different assumptions on how to treat
it. While these differences in approach do not allow for comparisons between studies, they do
not affect intra-study comparisons.
Land Use Change
The inclusion of land use change impacts has the potential to significantly influenceenvironmental impact results, especially GWP. Land use change impacts vary considerably,
depending on accounting methods and land type used for feedstock growth (e.g., change in crops
grown or clearing new land for crop production). Some studies mentioned that land use change
was not included due to lack of data, while the studies that included land use change in theiranalysis accounted for it differently. Leejarkpai and colleagues (2016) included land use change
emissions directly in the system boundary of the main comparisons. This study compared theresults of composting to landfilling, both with and without the inclusion of land use change.
When land use change impacts from production of the feedstock for PLA are not included, thetotal GWP of composted PLA is comparable to landfilled PET. However, when the impacts ofland use change are included, the total GWP of composted PLA is shown to almost double thetotal emissions from landfilled PET. Krüger and colleagues (2009) and Rossi and colleagues(2015) included land use change in the life cycle inventory of the feedstock for the compostableproducts they analyzed. Razza and colleagues (2015) did not include land use change as part ofthe primary analysis, but included it as part of their sensitivity analysis, and found that impacts
for GWP could increase by as much as 61 percent for their composting scenario.

Environmental Credits for Compost
Like the decisions regarding system boundaries, the way that credits are assigned for compost
resulting from compostable packaging affects the overall environmental performance ofcompostability. For the reviewed studies, Rossi and colleagues (2015) and Hermann andcolleagues (2011) explicitly mention the low nutrient content of compostable packaging
polymers, and assigned fewer credits for avoided use of fertilizers to the resulting compost whencompared to anaerobic digestion of the same material. The rest of the studies generally assumed
65

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warethat composting took place in industrial facilities where the packaging would be composted withother organic material and did not specify further on credits assigned due to low nutrient content.
This discrepancy in the interactions of the compostable product with the avoided processes
considered in the LCI of the different studies is common. Schott and colleagues (2016)
performed an analytical review of over 100 treatment scenarios of food and organic waste,
disposed through incineration, landfill, anaerobic digestion and compost. Their results foundlarge differences for GWP both between and within the different disposal methods, which can be
explained, to a large extent, by the choices made in the energy and bio-system process
substitutions for compost.

66

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 5. Scope of studies included in the compostable packaging comparisons.

100 port-hole spacers

EuropeIMPACT2002+; IPCC
2007 100y; CML 2001;& customx

Girgenti, 2014

Strawberry wrapping films/sheets

250 gram flow pack

Italy

IPCC 2007,
Inventory ba s edxHermann, 2011

Various biodegradable polymers

1 kg of polymer3

Europe

IPCC 2007,
Inventory ba s edxQuantis, 2011

Espresso capsule and packaging system 40 ml espresso cup

France,Switzerland

IMPACT 2002+,
ReCi Pex

Hermann, 2010

Food

EuropeCML 2 baselinex

Thailand

IPCC 2007

x

ThailandCML 2 baselinex

Leejarkpai, 2016 Thermoform boxes (single use)
Papong, 2014

Water bottles

Percent of Total Number

1000 drinking waterbottles, 250 ml each.

90

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x2

x
x1
x

x

x

x

x
x

20

x

20

x

x

x1

x

x

70

70

x

x
x

40

20

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

90

30

100

100

40

40

x

0

30

x

30

30

x

x

x

x

40

Land Usex

Water Consumptionx

Mineral Depletionx

Eutrophication, Marinex

Product Usex

Cradle-to-Gatex

Mentions Low Nutrient
Content

Considers Land Use Changex

Fossil Energy Depletion

Cushioning/expanded packaging

x

Ecotoxicity

Razza, 2015x

Human Health, Toxicity

Inventory based

Human Health, Respiratory

EuropeSmog1000 clamshells

x1

Ozone Depletion

Clamshell food packaging made from
Polylactide (Ingeo ™)

xEutrophication, Freshwater

Kruger et al,2009xAcidification

United States TRACI v 2.1

xResult Categories

Global Warming

1 kg of polymer3

x1

Boundary

End of Life

Polymers/biopolymers used for
packaging production

Compost Certificationx

Hottle, 2017

1 m2 of packaging film
1000 boxes, 0.2 L, 100 g
capacity

Accounts for Biogenic CO2

LCIA Method
IMPACT 2002+

Compost-Related Scope

Cellulose

Geography
EuropePaper

Author and Year Packaging Type
Functional Unit
Rossi, 2015
Dry packaging (e.g. non-food packaging, EOL treatment of 1 kg of
secondary packaging)
dry packaging

Biobased Plastic

Materials

20

70

x
x

10

10

20

[1] Composting scenario uses data for trademarked material (MaterBi ™) or primary data from manufacturer with composting certification.
[2] Mentions land use change (LUC) as part of sensitivity analysis, not main scenario comparisons. Inclusion of LUC in sensitivity increases GWP of composting
scenarios.
[3] Comparison of feedstock materials used to produce packaging
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

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The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Materials

Accounts for Biogenic CO2

Boundary

Biobased Plastic

CompostRelated Scope

0

1

2

3

Count of Studies (Total of 10)
4
5
6

7

8

20%

Cellulose

20%
70%

Compost Certification

70%

Considers Land Use Change

40%

Mentions Low Nutrient Content

20%

Cradle-to-Gate

90%

Product Use

30%

End of Life

100%

Global Warming

100%

Acidification

40%

Eutrophication, Freshwater

Result Categories

40%0%Ozone Depletion

30%

Smog

40%

Human Health, Respiratory

30%

Human Health, Toxicity

30%

Ecotoxicity

20%

Fossil Energy Depletion

70%

Mineral Depletion

10%

Water Consumption

10%

Land Use

10

90%

Paper

Eutrophication, Marine

920%

Figure 13. Scope of studies included in the compostable packaging comparisons.
Comparisons of composted packaging with non-compostable packaging that is landfilled,incinerated, or recycled have mixed results
Seven of the reviewed studies allowed for comparisons between compostable materials that arecomposted at end-of-life and non-compostable materials that are landfilled, incinerated, or
recycled. Of these, all seven studies allowed comparisons for GWP, while only three studies
allowed for comparisons for other impact categories (Girgenti and colleagues, 2014; Hottle andcolleagues, 2017; Quantis, 2011; Razza and colleagues, 2015). Note that comparisons ofcompostable packaging materials that are not composted are discussed in the next subheading.
Figure 14 is divided into three parts and shows the results for the comparisons between
composted materials and non-compostable materials that are landfilled (panel a), recycled (panelb), and incinerated with energy recovery (panel c).

68

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

-150

-100

Number of Comparisons
-50
0
50

-150
Fossil Energy
Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Mineral Depletion
Smog
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Land Occupation
Ozone Depletion
Acidification
Eutrophication
Global Warming

Figure 14b. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of compostable packaging that iscomposted with non-compostable packaging landfilled (a), recycled (b), and incinerated forenergy recovery (c).

Figure 14c. Comparisonsof theFigure 14a. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of compostable
packaging thatis life cycle impacts of compostable packagi
composted
with(b),non-compostablelandfilled (a), recycled (b), a
composted with non-compostable packaging landfilled(a), recycled
and incineratedpackaging
forenergy recovery (c).
energy recovery (c).

Fossil Energy
Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Mineral Depletion
Smog
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Land Occupation
Ozone Depletion
Acidification
Eutrophication
Global Warming

(a)

-100

Number of Comparisons
-50
0
50

-20

100

100

(c)

Fossil Energy
Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Mineral Depletion
Smog
Water Cons.
Ionizing Radiation
Land Occupation
Ozone Depletion
Acidification
Eutrophication
Global Warming

-15

-10

-5

Number of Comparisons
0
5
10
15

20

25

(b)

Figure 14. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of compostable
packaging that is composted with non-compostable packaging
landfilled (a), recycled (b), and incinerated for energy recovery (c).
Ratios reflect the result for the composted packaging divided by the result for the noncompostable packaging. Thus ratios <1 indicate composted packaging performs
better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive number of comparisons
while ratios >1 indicates composted packaging performs worse and are shown in the
figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red
represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and areconsidered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent counts ofcomparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by
the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number ofdark green minus dark red comparisons. All panels sorted by net result ofcomparisons from panel a.

69

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Composted Packaging vs. Landfilled Non-Compostable Packaging
Global Warming Impacts. Figure 14 (panel a) shows the comparisons between composted vs.
landfilled, non-compostable packaging for GWP. 168 (89 percent) of these comparisons are
obtained from the study by Hermann and colleagues (2010). Most comparisons wherecompostable materials perform poorly compared to non-compostable landfilled materials comefrom this study, due to its comparatively large sample size. There are three cases wherecomposting results in greater GWP: 1) the landfill scenarios for Hermann and colleagues (2010)
include gas recovery, and most of the materials in this study are bio-based, allowing for energy
offsets; 2) most of the compostable packaging is in the form of laminates that contain noncompostable materials, decreasing the amount of compostable material available per functional
unit, and 3) the study models some of the compostable materials (e.g. PLA, paper-basedlaminate) as releasing more GHG emissions from composting than from landfilling. The higher
ratios for composting scenarios in the second GWP row in (panel a), excluding Hermann andcolleagues (2010) are due to the effects of including land use change in the system boundaries of
the composted PLA (Leejarkpai and colleagues, 2016), and comparisons between composted
TPS and landfilled bio-HDPE and bio-LDPE, as these materials have lower cradle to gate GHG
emissions than TPS (Hottle and colleagues 2017).
On the other hand, the comparisons that produced lower impacts for GWP for compostablematerials for the Hermann and colleagues (2010) study are mostly caused by the comparisons oflaminates with only compostable materials (e.g., PLA) against complex laminates with thecompostable materials that are modeled as releasing higher gas yields during landfilling (e.g.,containing cellulose). Girgenti and colleagues (2014), Papong and colleagues (2014), and Razza
and colleagues (2015) also indicate that compostable packaging materials (Mater-Bi, PLA, andstarch-based expanded plastic) produce lower GHG impacts than the landfilled conventional
materials they were compared against (PE, PET, fossil-based EPS). Hottle and colleagues (2017)
also found favorable results for some comparisons, with cradle-to-grave GHG emissions ofcompostable polymers generally lower than conventional polymers when they were composted.
For example, the study indicates that GHG emissions from PLA production are lower than thosefrom PET, LDPE, and HDPE production, while emissions from TPS production are lower thanPET and LDPE, but not HDPE, which has similar GHG emissions for production. Both cradleto-gate and cradle-to-grave emissions are sensitive to study assumptions, as discussed above.
Other Impact Categories. Comparative results from the review indicate that both life cycle andcradle-to-gate energy impacts for compostable materials are lower than those from conventional
landfilled materials (Girgenti et al. 2014; Hottle, Bilec, and Landis 2017; Razza et al. 2015).
Unlike GHG emissions, this holds true for energy use across all the materials compared in theindividual studies. Of the reviewed studies, only two presented results comparing compostable
packaging and conventional landfilled materials for impact categories other than GWP and fossil
energy use. Results for compostable materials were mixed, with specific materials performing
better or worse on specific impact categories.
Razza and colleagues (2015) indicate that the compostable, starch-based expanded bioplastic
included in their analysis performs better than landfilled expanded polystyrene (EPS) for smog
formation potential and mineral depletion, and performs similarly for ozone depletion. These
70

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareresults are consistent for both cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave impacts. Hottle and colleagues(2017) show mixed results depending on the particular impact category and materials being
compared. For example, PLA performs better than landfilled PET for ecotoxicity and ozone
depletion, while TPS does not. All the ratios in Figure 14 (panel a) for the human toxicity
category are obtained from this study. Results indicate that composted PLA and TPS generally
lead to lower human toxicity impacts than landfilled PET, HDPE, LDPE, bioPET, bioHDPE, andbioLDPE. In contrast to the results from Razza and colleagues (2015), these results are notconsistent between production and total life cycle impacts, as the study shows that waste
management strategies play an important role for these categories. Both studies, however, showthat all compostable materials considered generally result in significantly greater impacts(meaning ratios >1.25) for both acidification and eutrophication categories than conventional
materials. These ratios are driven by fertilizer and water use in the production of the biobasedmaterials as well as heavy machinery use during the composting process (Hottle, Bilec, andLandis 2013). However, it should be noted that the magnitude increase of these categories islower in absolute terms than the magnitude of reductions that composting achieved for GWP.
Composted Materials vs. Non-Compostable Materials Recycled and Incinerated.
Four studies included comparisons of composted and non-compostable, recycled materials,
shown in Figure 14 (panel b). The biobased starch studied by Razza and colleagues (2015)
results in lower production impacts for the compostable material, leading to the positive ratios
for the global warming, smog formation, fossil energy depletion, and mineral depletion impact
categories, regardless of whether the non-compostable material is recycled or landfilled. Papong
and colleagues (2015) founds that composted PLA and chemically recycled PET perform
similarly, with both materials producing similar life cycle GHG emissions despite the different
end-of-life treatment. Quantis (2011) found that composting PLA based espresso capsules resultsin marginally higher impacts for GWP and energy use than recycling of aluminum based
capsules.
Most of the comparisons for composting vs. recycling of non-compostable materials come from
Hottle and colleagues (2017). The composted materials, PLA and TPS, are compared to recycled
PET, HDPE, LDPE, bio-PET, bio-HDPE, and bio-LDPE. For GWP, the non-compostable
recycled materials perform better due to the credits assigned to avoided production of virginmaterial by recycling. Additionally, the recycled bio-based polymers are credited with the offset
of fossil-based plastics due to the large scale of existing plastics recovery infrastructure, resulting
in lower impacts for the fuel depletion category. Conversely, the composted materials generally
perform better than the recycled materials in the human toxicity and smog impacts, with mixed
results for ozone depletion, and ecotoxicity categories. The lower impacts of the composted
materials for these categories are due to the small magnitude of emissions related to the
production, transportation, and composting of the materials, while the recyclable materials
include the emissions of transportation from the U.S. to China, where they are recycled. The
emissions related to the long-distance transportation are a main cause for the higher impacts inthese categories for the recycled materials, though the magnitude of the impacts is considerably
lower than the GWP and energy categories. Additionally, sensitivity analysis for the recycledmaterials where the transportation distance is reduced, and materials are modeled as recycledwithin the U.S., results in the impacts for non-compostable recycled materials being morecomparable to the emissions from composting of the materials.
71

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareThree studies compared composted materials vs. non-compostable materials that are incinerated
with energy recovery, shown in Figure 14 (panel c). A total of 177 comparisons were made, fourof which were for the fossil energy demand category and the rest for GWP, and 168 of whichcame from Hermann and colleagues (2010). From this study, results with ratios less than one forcompostable materials are mostly observed in the comparisons of laminates made from only one
compostable material, such as PLA or cellulose, against complex laminates where made frommultiple materials, not all of which allow for efficient energy recovery (e.g. aluminum). The
lower amount of energy recovered in these scenarios results in lower electricity and heat offsets,
which in turn drives higher GHG emissions for the non-compostable material than the GHG
emissions stored in the compost. Papong and colleagues (2014) compared composted PLA
bottles against incinerated PET bottles, with the lone comparison yielding a ratio of 0.65. This
result was driven by the higher anthropogenic GHG emissions obtained from the incineration of
the PET bottle when compared to the composting process of PLA bottles. The biogenic
emissions for the composting of PLA were considered carbon neutral in this study. Quantis(2011) found that composting PLA based espresso capsules results in marginally higher impacts
for GWP and energy use than incineration of aluminum based capsules.
Considering most impact metrics, composting was not found to consistently result insignificantly lower impacts for a given compostable packaging material
While all the studies identified contain scenarios for compostable materials, eight studies provide
comparisons between composting of the materials under review and impacts of other waste
management options for the same material. Seven provide comparisons with landfilling of thesame material; six provide comparisons with incineration; two studies provide comparisons forrecycling and anaerobic digestion; and one for direct fuel substitution and home composting (asopposed to industrial composting, which is the default assumption in the other scenarios).
Overall results from these comparisons suggest that composting is rarely the most favorable
waste management option of compostable packaging materials for the different impact
categories, as shown in Figure 15.
Composting vs. landfilling of compostable materials
Whether composting of compostable packaging materials results in lower GWP than landfillingthe same materials depends on the rate of degradation of the materials in a landfill. Assumptions
regarding degradation in landfills vary across studies. Leejarkpai and colleagues (2016)
performed an experiment to test the degradation rate of PLA in a landfill, and found that PLA
degrades anaerobically, causing significantly more GWP in a landfill than in an industrial
composter. A similar assumption of high anaerobic degradation for PLA under landfill
conditions was used by Quantis (2011), resulting in marginally lower GWP for composted PLA.
The literature reviewed by Rossi and colleagues (2015) suggests that PLA does not degrade fullyin landfill conditions in 100-year timeframe, while TPS does. Hottle and colleagues (2017)
included both high and low degradation scenarios for PLA to model different literatureassumptions, with the high degradation scenario having higher emissions than composting, while
the low scenario does not. Krüger and colleagues (2009) assumed no degradation in landfill,
resulting in fewer emissions for this waste management option. These mixed results are similar
to those found by previous reviews of waste management options for organics (Morris,
Matthews, and Morawski 2013) and food waste (Schott, Wenzel, and la Cour Jansen 2016), who
72

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warealso found the degree of degradation assumed by different LCAs to be a major contributing
factor in the differences between results. For Hermann and colleagues (2010), the main factor isthe fact that the study assumes landfill gas recovery for many compostable materials in landfill
conditions, which grants energy credits to the landfilling scenarios that assume displacement ofgrid electricity consumption and thus lower total emissions from landfilling.

-50

-40

-30

Number of Comparisons
-20
-10
0

10

20

Figure 15. Comparison of life cycle impacts of composting of compostable packaging
materials vs. other waste management options for the same compostable materials.

Mineral Depletion
Eutrophication
Human Toxicity
Land Occupation
Water Cons.
Ozone Depletion
Acidification
PM Formation
Smog
Ecotoxicity
Ionizing Radiation
Global Warming
Fossil Energy

Figure 15. Comparison of life cycle impacts of composting of compostable packaging
materials vs. other waste management options for the same compostable materials. Ratios
reflect the result for the composted packaging divided by the result for the same compostable packaging that is notcomposted. Thus ratios <1 indicate composted packaging performs better and are shown in the figure in green as
the positive number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates composted packaging performs worse and are shownin the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts ofcomparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green andlight red represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by
the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red
comparisons.

When comparing composting and landfilling of compostable materials for impact categories
other than GWP, composting shows mixed results for eutrophication and ozone depletion, andperforms worse for acidification, smog, ecotoxicity, and fossil energy depletion. However, theresults for these categories are dependent upon the specific system boundary assumptions andsystem expansion credits assigned to the composting scenarios, which makes drawing more
specific conclusions difficult.
Composting vs. Recycling and Incineration of compostable materials
Results are also mixed when comparing composting and other, non-landfilling dispositions likerecycling or incineration. Due to the differences in scope, materials, and number of comparisonsprovided by each study, it is not possible to define with certainty a waste management hierarchy
for compostable materials. However, some general trends can be observed.
Incineration and direct fuel substitution generally result in lower impacts for most categories due
to energy recovery credits and displacement of other energy sources/processes (Krüger et al.,73

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
2009; Papong et al., 2014; Quantis, 2011; Rossi et al., 2015). The exception is for human healthimpacts, where composting avoids the particulate matter and human toxicity emissions fromburning of the material. Recycling of biobased compostable polymers is shown to be better, or atthe very least, comparable to composting those same materials, due to the avoided impacts ofproducing virgin material especially with regards to GHG and fossil resource use (Hottle, Bilec,
and Landis 2017; Rossi et al. 2015). However, unless biobased compostable materials can berecycled using established infrastructure for more commonly recycled, fossil-based materials,
this waste management option for compostable materials is limited.
Compostable packaging that is landfilled, recycled, or incinerated can be more impactfulthan non-compostable packaging that is landfilled, recycled, or incinerated
Four studies provide comparisons of compostable packaging which is landfilled, recycled, or
incinerated versus non-compostable packaging that is landfilled, recycled, or incinerated, as
shown in Figure 16. Note that these comparisons can be between different materials andmanagement methods, such as incinerated PLA vs landfilled PET (see Supporting Information
B). For GWP, Leejarkpai and colleagues (2016), Papong and colleagues (2016), and Hottle andcolleagues (2017) provide comparisons of landfilled PLA vs. landfilled and recycled PET, withlandfilled PLA performing considerably worse (most ratios > 1.4). This is predominantly due tothe high degradation rates assumed for PLA under landfill conditions, coupled with the cradle togate production emissions from land use change in the case of Leejarkpai and colleagues (2016).
Comparisons with ratios lower than one for GWP for the compostable materials are those where
low degradation rates are assumed under landfill conditions (Hottle and colleagues, 2017). When
compared to non-compostable materials incinerated with energy recovery, landfilled PLA
performs worse when landfilled without energy recovery, and similarly when landfilled orincinerated with energy recovery. Additionally, Quantis (2011) provides comparisons between
landfilled and incinerated PLA espresso capsules vs. landfilled, incinerated, and recycled
aluminum capsules for the GWP and energy depletion categories, with 47 out of 48 comparisons
resulting in either marginally or significantly higher impacts for the composted PLA capsules.
Most the comparisons for categories other than GWP are obtained from Hottle and colleagues(2017). Most of the ratios below 0.75 for the human toxicity, ecotoxicity, fossil energy depletion,ozone depletion, and smog categories in Figure 16 come from comparisons of compostable PLA
and TPS against non-compostable, fossil-based PET, HDPE, and LDPE, as well as bio-based
versions of these polymers, made from blends of renewable and conventional feedstocks. These
comparisons are between landfilled PLA and TPS vs. both landfilled and recycled conventionaland bio-based polymers. The low ratios for these categories result from the fewer emissions
produced by the compostable materials during the production phase than the emissions producedby fossil-based polymers and blended bio-polymers, regardless of which EOL treatment the noncompostable polymers undergo. The exceptions are the acidification and eutrophication
categories due to the fertilizers used in the production of compostable PLA and TPS.

74

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

-80

-60

-40

Number of Comparisons
-20
0
20
40

60

80

Figure 16. Comparisons of compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or recycled
disposed with non-compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or recycled.

Human Toxicity
PM Formation
Ecotoxicity
Fossil Energy
Ozone Depletion
Smog
Water Cons.
Mineral Depletion
Ionizing Radiation
Land Occupation
Eutrophication
Acidification
Global Warming

Figure 16. Comparisons of compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or
recycled disposed with non-compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or
recycled. Ratios reflect the result for compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or recycled divided by
the result for the non-compostable packaging that is landfilled, incinerated, or recycled. Thus ratios <1 indicatecompostable packaging performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive number of comparisons
while ratios >1 indicates compostable packaging performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative
number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25
respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent counts of comparisonswith ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result of comparisons representing
meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red comparisons.

Other considerations related to compostable packaging
While the results discussed above provide valuable insight into the potential environmental
tradeoffs of compostable packaging, there are several points worth noting that are not welladdressed in the literature. The following subsections discuss some of these issues.
Availability of Industrial-scale Composting Facilities. While composting may be the intended
waste management strategy for most of these packaging materials, it is likely that a significant
fraction of such materials will be landfilled. This is because landfilling is the end case scenario
for about half of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the U.S., while composting accounts for justunder 9 percent (U.S. EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery 2016).
Most of the studies reviewed assumed adequate facilities for composting (and the other waste
management options they considered), but in reality the majority of dedicated composting
facilities in the U.S. accept only yard trimmings and similar organic refuse (Platt et al. 2014).
Facilities have little incentive to include compostable packaging products in their operations, forvarious reasons: increased risk of contamination to the compost product (e.g., microchemicals
and metals, non compostable materials comingled with compostable packaging); increased
operational costs from additional screening and labor; potential increases in compost production
time as a result of longer material breakdown periods; and inadequate standards for compostablematerials which result in such materials not composting under real operatin conditions. This lack
75

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Wareof consistently accessible infrastucture for compostable packaging often means that thesematerials end up in landfills instead (Meeks et al. 2015).
Another difficulty for adequate disposal of compostable packaging is that often consumers do
not have a clear understanding of the differences between biodegradable and compostable
packaging, and between home and industrial composting. For commercial consumers, such as
cafeterias and catering services, important factors that contributed to appropriate disposal ofcompostable products were the presence of a dedicated sustainability manager who understoodthe differences between biodegradable and compostable products and who could implement
strategic, measureable sustainability goals, as well as the existence of a robust compost market(Meeks et al. 2015). For residential consumers, it has been shown that education of the public
and adequate product labeling can help improve source separation by households so thatcompostable packaging can be collected with organic waste and thus sent to the appropriate
facilities. Though such a scheme requires extensive planning, the compost resulting fromstreams with an increased amount of compostable packaging showed no difference in quality tocompost wihtout the compostable packaging (Davis and Song 2006). In addition, significant
amount of compostable packaging is marketed and used for takeout food items which due to its
distributed nature contribute to contamination or be diverted to landfill.
Certification of compostability for packaging materials
It is important to distinguish between the LCA studies of compostable packaging and those of
potentially compostable packaging materials or packaging precursors. Certification is often doneon a product by product basis, and while resin manufacturers can provide certification forcompostable resins they produce, the packaging manufacturers can modify the compostability of
the resins by using additives and forming the packaging. Of the studies included in this review,
five used certified compostable products or followed ISO or ASTM guidelines for identifying
compostable products. Three studies used MaterBi ™, a material certified by the European
Standard EN 13432 which defines the characteristics for a material to be compostable (Girgenti
et al., 2014; Rossi et al., 2015; Hottle et al., 2017); Leejarkpai and colleagues (2016) followed
ISO guidelines when setting up their degradability experiment; all of the materials reviewed byHermann and colleagues (2010; 2011) meet the European standard EN 13432 as well as the
ASTM D64004 and ASTM D68685 standards; and the polymer considered by Kruger andcolleagues (2009) is certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute . Razza and colleagues(2015) and Papong and colleagues (2014) did not specify compostability certification of thematerials used in their analyses.
Biodegradation of compostable plastic in the environment
Although it was included as part of the goal of the literature review, no literature was found withquantitive comparative results regarding the biodegradation of compostable packaging underambient exposure conditions. However, Emadian and colleagues (2017) studied different typesof compostable packaging under different environments, and found that the pH, moisture,oxygen content, and temperature of the environment, as well as the structure composition of the
biopolymer play a significant role in the degree of biodegradation. Compostable bioplastics
generally showed high degradability in soil environments, but generally do not degrade in fresh
water and marine environments, making these materials comparable to conventional plastics interms of their potential to harm freshwater and marine animals.
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The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Opportunities for joint collection of compostable packaging and food waste
Promoting the joint collection of food waste and compostable packaging in a single waste stream
has the potential to improve the collection rates of the latter, as suggested by Davis & Song(2006). However, none of the compostable packaging studies included in this review considered
this dynamic, and during the literature search no studies were found that provided quantitative
results for it, which reflects the fact that the single waste stream approach for organic waste andcompostable packaging is still in the early stages of adoption. Additionally, while compostable
packaging may deliver residual food scraps to the composter, the environmental impacts ofcomposting food waste (without including compostable packaging) vary considerably from study
to study, based on modeling assumptions (Schott, Wenzel, and la Cour Jansen 2016). Thus,
while joint collection of compostable packaging and food waste could provide beneficial nutrient
value to the compost made from packaging, the uncertain benefits of composting of food waste
suggest more research is needed to determine how the environmental impacts of compostable
packaging would change under such a scheme. Additionally, two studies were found thatanalyzed composting of tableware in conjunction with food waste. These are discussed in thefood service ware section.
Summary – compostable packaging
Most of the studies included in this review for compostable packaging focused on GWP. Results
show that use and composting of compostable packaging often results in higher GWP whencompared to non-compostable materials and other waste management options for thecompostable materials. Compostable materials also tend to be biobased, and accordingly produce
higher acidification and eutrophication impacts than fossil-based materials due to the fertilizers
and machinery needed in their production. Conversely, compostable packaging tended toperform better in the human toxicity, ecotoxicity, smog, and ozone depletion categories whencompared to other materials such as PET, HDPE, and LDPE, due to the low emissions for the
impact categories during their production, though this depends to a large extent on the specificmaterials being compared. Additionally, while the results are based over 1,200 individualcomparisons, these come from a limited number of studies (ten), which makes the results
particularly representative of the conditions and assumptions from those studies.
While compostable packaging represents a small share of the packaging market, consumer
interest in sustainability has increased demand for it (Meeks et al. 2015). Unfortunately, thestudies included in this review suggest that the use of compostable packaging has signficant
environmental tradeoffs when compared with non-compostable materials and other end-of-life
packaging management practices. Results suggest that other waste recovery strategies, such as
recycling, may be preferable when considering the disposal of a specific compostable packaging
material. Still, there are considerable uncertainties in the study findings due to different treatmentof system boundaries, biogenic carbon accounting, and system expansion credits, indicating that
more researchis needed to better understand the environmental impacts of compostable
packaging.
In addition to mixed environmental perfomance, compostable packaging faces other obstacles tobecoming more widely used, such as difficulties integrating compostable packaging into existing
manufacturing processes; consumers’ confusion regarding the differences between what is
77

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warebiobased, biodegradable, and compostable, as this increases the difficulty of compostable
packaging being properly collected and sorted by composting facilities; consistent availability ofindustrial composting facilities nationwide; and the lack of adequate markets for compost andfacilities that accept compostable packaging (Meeks et al. 2015).

Food Service Ware Results
This section describes the results for food service ware (FSW) related to the four attributes
previously presented for packaging. While the emphasis is on the impacts of the attributes on
FSW, the similarities and differences of the findings for FSW with respect to packaging will behighligted. The search identified 11 relevant studies across all attributes for FSW, which
included 106 different scenarios for FSW products and 1,344 comparisons. Cups were the mostcommonly studied product , included in seven of the studies and 783 comparisons. Other FSW
products studied include lids, plates, dishes, napkins, straws, and cutlery, such as knives, forks,
and spoons. GWP was included in all studies, while land occupation was the least common
impact category included, only present in four studies. The biobased/renewable and compostable
attributes were most commonly represented in the studies, being included in seven studies. The
recycled content attribute was not adequately represented in the literature search for food service
ware to draw broadly meaningful conclusions.
During the literature search for FSW for the four attributes, several of the studies found included
analysis on the impacts of reusability of FSW in addition to one or more of the four main
attributes. In addition, several studies were identified that focused exclusively on theenvironmental impacts of reusable FSW. While reusability as an attribute is out of the scope of
this work for FSW and packaging, its prevalence in the literature indicates it is an active area of
research. Accordingly, a short summary of the analysis of reusable FSW for the studies includedin this report is found in the Supporting Information A.

Recycled Content in Food Service Ware
The effect of recycled content on the life cycle impacts of food service ware has not been
well examined; aggregate results from one study suggest benefits from recycled content
We were not able to identify any studies that provided midpoint impact results for the recycledcontent attribute. Pladerer and colleagues’ (2008) study includes some comparisons of single use
cups with and without recycled content as part of a sensitivity analysis, however these results are
only provided in terms of an aggregate indicator based on the Environmental Burden Point(EBP) 2006 economic scarcity LCIA method. This LCIA method is reported as a single indicatorscore which aggregates weighted midpoint impact results and does not break out results by
impact category, as indicated in Table 6.
Pladerer and colleagues (2008) analyzed cups made from PS and BELLAND ® material.
BELLAND ® is an experimental plastic designed to be easily recycled. Results from theaggregate rating indicate that cups with recycled content are preferable to those without recycledcontent. More specifically, PS cups with 80 percent recycled content and BELLAND cups with
50 percent recycled content yielded 25 percent to 35 percent lower scores on the aggregate EBP
78

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware2006 indicator than virgin PS cups and BELLAND. These improvements are consistent with thefindings for packaging with recycled content. However, Pladerer and colleagues also found that
paperboard cups with no recycled content yielded lower scores than the plastic cup options withrecycled content, a finding that echoes other findings that product design and material choice canhave more influence on environmental performance than recycled content as an attribute without
further context.
It is possible that many suppliers include some amount of post-consumer recycled content (lessthan 20 percent) in FSW products such as PET cold cups, paper cups, and paperboard
clamshells.15 While some research suggests that particular materials with recycled content may
not be suitable for food contact due to chemical contamination (Binderup and colleagues, 2002;
Biedermann and Grob, 2010), it is worth noting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA) does not prohibit recycled content in packaging that is in contact with food. The FDA
also issues letters of no objection to qualifying post-consumer plastic reclaimers (U.S. Food andDrug Administration 2018). Additionally, some organizations maintain rigorous testing protocols
as a means for voluntary provision of food safety assurance for recycled materials used in the
manufacture of FSW, such as the Recycled Paperboard Technical Association’s “Comprehensive
Program for Food-Contact Paperboard Produced From Recycled Fiber”.

Recyclable Food Service WareScope
We identified two studies of recyclable FSW that provide comparisons between FSW recycled at
the EOL with FSW not recycled or recycled at a lower rate at EOL. Materials included in bothstudies were PS, PP, PLA, and paper. Table 7 and Figure 17 provide a summary of these studies,
which provide 654 comparisons between FSW recycled at EOL and FSW that is not recycled or
recycled at a lower rate. Of these, 192 comparisons were between FSW of the same material and462 comparisons were between FSW of different materials. All the comparisons are between
recyclable FSW that is recycled at EOL and other recyclable FSW that is not recycled or
recycled at a lower rate at EOL, with recycling rates ranging from 100 to 0 percent depending on
the specific comparisons. We did not find any comparisons between recyclable FSW and nonrecyclable FSW that were suitable for inclusion in this review. Both studies included mostimpact categories tracked in this review.
As with the results for recyclable packaging, the definition for recyclable FSW requires theexistence of infrastructure making it feasible to collect and reprocess post-consumer materials.
Thus, it is possible that a packaging format considered recyclable in one area may not be
considered recyclable in another due to the lack of adequate collection services and/or
reprocessing facilities. This fine point makes generalizing comparisons between recyclable andnon-recyclable FSW challenging. Therefore, most of the comparisons discussed in this section
are between packaging that is recycled at its end-of-life and another packaging option that isrecyclable, but which is either recycled at a lower rate or not recycled at its end-of-life.

15

Adam Gendell, Associate Director, Sustainable Packaging Coalition, personal communication, March 2, 2018.

79

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 6. Scope of Pladerer and colleagues’ study described in this section.

Aggregare Indicator

100Land Use100

Water Consumption

100

Mineral Depletion

100

Fossil Energy Depletion

100

Human Health, Toxicity

100

Human Health, Respiratory

x

Smog

x

Ozone Depletionx

Eutrophication, Marinex

Eutrophication, Freshwaterx

Acidification

End of Lifex

Global Warming

Product Use

Percent of Total Number

Cradle-to-Gate

LCIA Method
EBP 2006

Paper/Cardboard

20081

Functional
Unit
Geography
0.5 L drink Germany,
Austria,
Switzerland

Result Categories

Bio-based Plastic Resins

FSW
Author and Year Product
Pladerer et al., Cups

Boundary

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Materials

x
0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

100

[1] Included an aggregate impact score comparing cups with and without recycled content as part of sensitivity analysis, but results are not provided for individual
impact categories.

Table 7. Scope of studies included in the recyclable FSW comparisons.

100

80

100

100

100

100

50

x

x

100

100

50

x

x

x

x

x

x

100

100

50

100

50

Land Use

100

x

x

Water Consumption

100

x

x

Mineral Depletion

100

x

x

Fossil Energy Depletion

100

x

x

Ecotoxicityxx

Human Health, Toxicity

ABx

Human Health, Respiratory

x

x

Smog

x

x

Ozone Depletionxx

Eutrophication, Marinex

Eutrophication,FreshwaterAB

Acidificationx

Global Warmingx

End of Lifex

Result Categories

Product Use

Cradle-to-Gate

Serving of one hot
Thebeverage from vending Netherlands
machineLCIA Method
ILCD 2011
midpoint
CML 2001
baseline,
Ecoinvent CED

Recycling Allocation
MethodPotting and van Cups
der Harst, 2015

Percent of Total Number

Geography
Italy

Paper/Cardboard

Functional Unit
1,000 meals/drinks

Boundary

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Author and Year FSW Product
Pro.Mo, 2015
Cups

Recyclability

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Materials

x

x

x

50

50

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareCount of Studies (Total of 2)

Boundary Recyclability Materials

01

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

100%

Bio-based Plastic Resins100%

Paper/Cardboard

100%

AB Method

100%

Cradle-to-Gate

100%

Product Use

50%

End of Life

100%

Global Warming

100%

Acidification

100%

Eutrophication, Freshwater100%

Eutrophication, Marine

Result Categories

2

50%

Ozone Depletion

100%

Smog

100%

Human Health, Respiratory

50%

Human Health, Toxicity

100%

Ecotoxicity

100%

Fossil Energy Depletion

50%

Mineral Depletion

100%

Water Consumption

50%

Land Use

50%

Figure 17. Scope of studies included in the recyclable FSW comparisons.
The two studies identified suggest recyclable food service ware is preferable to nonrecyclable (or not recycled) food service ware
For comparisons between FSW of different materials, shown in Figure 18 (panel a), recyclable
FSW that is recycled or which has a higher recycling rate at EOL is frequently found to havelower impacts across all impact categories. More specifically, when comparing FSW of different
materials, recycled or more highly recycled FSW has significantly lower impacts in 258
comparisons, marginally lower impacts in 99 comparisons, marginally higher impacts in 58
comparisons, and significantly higher impacts in 44 comparisons. The ecotoxicity, human
toxicity, and mineral depletion impact categories are responsible for 30 of the significantly
higher impact comparisons.
Figure 18 (panel b) shows comparisons between recyclable FSW recycled at the EOL with FSWof the same material that is not recycled or recycled at a lower rate at EOL. Recyclable FSW thatis recycled or has a higher recycling rate at EOL is usually found to have lower impacts,
although for many comparisons the difference is marginal. More specifically, recyclable FSW
that is recycled or has a higher recycling rate at EOL has significantly lower impacts in 44
comparisons (23 percent), marginally lower impacts in 145 comparisons (76 percent), andmarginally higher impacts in three comparisons (2 percent). Recyclable products compared
include cups and dishes made of PS and PP. The scenarios that result in marginally higher
81

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
impacts (ratios between 1.01 and 1.05 for GWP) are when PP dishes are disposed of with a mixof recycling and incineration vs. when they are disposed via landfill. These are the only ratios >1 in Figure 18 (panel b), which are caused by the higher GHG emissions caused from burning of
the PP dishes for incineration with energy recovery as opposed to landfilling them.
-30

-20

-10

Number of Comparisons
10
20
30
40
50

0

Figure 18a. Comparisons of FSW products that arerecycled
to FSW productsof a products
different that are recycled to FSW products of a different
Figure18b. Comparisonsof FSW
material (a) and same material (b) that is not recycledor (a)
recycled
at a lowerrate.
materialand samematerial(b) that is not recycled or recycled at a lower rate.

Eutrophication
Human Toxicity
Ecotoxicity
Smog
Acidification
Ozone Depletion
Global Warming
PM Formation
Water Cons.
Land Occupation
Fossil Energy
Mineral Depletion
Ionizing Radiation

60

70

(a)

-5

0

5

10

Number of Comparisons
15
20
25
30

Eutrophication
Human Toxicity
Ecotoxicity
Smog
Acidification
Ozone Depletion
Global Warming
PM Formation
Water Cons.
Land Occupation
Fossil Energy
Mineral Depletion
Ionizing Radiation

35

40

(b)

Figure 18. Comparisons of FSW products that are recycled to FSW products of a different
material (a) and same material (b) that is not recycled or recycled at a lower rate.
Ratios reflect the result for the recyclable FSW products that are recycled divided by the result for the FSW
products that are not recycled or recycled at a lower rate. Thus ratios <1 indicate recycled FSW performs betterand are shown in the figure in green as the positive number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates recycled FSW
performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red
represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful
differences. Light green and light red represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25
respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. thenumber of dark green minus dark red comparisons. All panels sorted by net result of comparisons from panel a.

It should be noted that the studies included in Figure 18 (panels a and b) do not explicitly
mention food contamination when considering the recycling rates of the analyzed products.
Since contamination from food can impact the rate at which some FSW items are accepted for82

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
recycling, these estimates should be considered a best-case scenario for recycling these items.
Specific studies included in the comparisons for recyclable FSW are described below.
Environmental impacts of recyclable FSW can depend on the specific product being analyzed.
For example, a study by Pro.mo, an industry group consisting of six Italian companies that
produce about 80 percent of the plastic tableware in the country, analyzed the impacts ofdisposable cups and dishes made from PS, PP, PLA, and cellulose pulp (Pro.mo Industry Group,2015). Comparisons between PS and PP based products that are 50 percent recycled and 50
percent incinerated are made against the same type of product made from a different material(e.g., PS vs. PP, PLA, or paperboard) that is disposed via landfill or a mixture of landfill andincineration. The recycled PP and PS cups performed better in 47 percent of the comparisons,while the recycled PP and PS dishes performed better in 58 percent (128 comparisons each). The
difference in performance between cups and dishes is likely caused by the differences in theamount of materials used for the manufacturing of the two FSW products.
Potting and van der Harst (2015) analyzed PS, PLA, and paperboard cups. The study suggeststhat while impacts from recycling are generally lower than incineration and composting for thesematerials, results are sensitive to the specific life cycle production data used and the modelingassumptions of the various end-of-life disposal options. For example, results from this study
show that recycling of PS cups result in lower impacts when compared to incineration andcomposting of PLA and paperboard cups for all categories included in Table 7 except for mineraldepletion. In contrast, incineration of PS cups results in lower emissions than recycling of PLA
and paperboard cups only for the GWP, energy depletion, and mineral depletion categories. Thisis because incineration at EOL is assigned higher avoided burden credits than recycling due todisplacement of electricity from the Dutch grid, which is highly dependent of fossil fuels.
Sensitivity analysis for different grid mixes reverse this result, as the use of a cleaner grid resultsin fewer credits for avoided burdens from incineration than from displaced material production
from recycling.
The results for the comparisons for recyclable FSW products differ from the results forrecyclable packaging, which showed mixed results overall (see Figure 7). This is primarily due
to differences in the materials used for food service ware versus packaging. The unfavorable
results for recyclable packaging were mainly comparisons of glass and metals with lightermaterials such as plastics and aseptic cartons. Glass and metal are generally not used for
disposable FSW products, and thus there is less variability in the production impacts and avoided
burdens from recycling in the FSW comparisons.

Biobased Food Service WareScope
We identified seven studies with LCA comparisons between biobased and non-biobased FSW.
Table 8 and Figure 19 provide an overview of the scope of each of these studies. Biobasedmaterials include PLA, cellulose and molded fiber, paper, and board. None of the studies
included considered biobased versions of conventional polymers, such as bioPET. These studies
provided 327 comparisons between biobased and non-biobased FSW products. All seven studies
included the cradle to gate and EOL life cycle stages, while only four included the use phase.
83

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service WareGWP was the most commonly analyzed impact category, included in all studies, followed byacidification and fossil energy depletion, included in five each. Even though land use can be asignificant source of emissions for biobased products due to impacts of feedstock growth, it was
one of the least analyzed categories, included only in two studies.
The comparisons of biobased FSW presented in this section are limited to comparisons between
biobased and non-biobased FSW that undergo the same EOL treatment. Due to the mostly
negative results of compostable, biobased FSW comparisons (see next section), we wanted toensure that the results for the biobased comparisons are not mostly driven by the composting of
the FSW products. Thus, the comparisons in this section focus on the impacts of the biobased
attribute, without differences in waste management methods confounding the results.

84

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 8. Scope of studies included in the biobased FSW comparisons.

Drinking cups and flat
lids

Franklin

Hot and cold cups,

Associates, 20111 plates, clamshells
Hakkinen and
Vares, 2010

Cups

16-ounce single use cold United States
beverage cup with flatlid
10,000 items of each
United States
FSW product100,000 cups

Europe

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Land Usexx

Water Consumptionxx

Mineral Depletionx

Fossil Energy Depletion

x

x

Smog

x

x

Ozone Depletionxx

Ecotoxicity

PE Americas,
2009

Germany,
Austria,
Switzerlandxx

Human Health, Toxicity

Cups

x

Human Health, Respiratory

Pladerer et al.,2008

x

Eutrophication, Marine

Inventory based,
EcoIndicator 99
UBA (German
Ministry of theEnvironment)
MethodCML

Platesx

Eutrophication,Freshwater

United States

Broca, 2008x

Acidification

CML 2001 baseline,
Ecoinvent CED

Global Warming

The
Netherlands

End of Life

Serving of one hot
beverage from vending
machineDishwasher load, 2,960
plates
0.5 L drink

Result Categories

Product Use

Potting and van Cups
der Harst, 2015

Cradle-to-Gate

LCIA Method
ILCD 2011 midpoint

Composite/Other

Geography
Italy

Paper/Cardboard

Functional Unit
1,000 meals/drinks

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Author and Year FSW Product
Pro.Mo, 2015
Dishes and cups

Boundary

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Materials

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

IPCC 2007

Not specified

Percent of Total Number

x
86

x
86

[1] Update of previous publication
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

85

57

14

x

x

x

x

100

57

100

100

71

57

14

43

57

43

43

43

71

43

43

29

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware012Count of Studies (Total of 7)3
45

Materials

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Boundary

57%
14%

Cradle-to-Gate

100%

Product Use

57%

End of Life

100%

Global Warming

100%
71%

Eutrophication, Freshwater
Eutrophication, Marine

57%
14%

Ozone Depletion

43%

Smog

57%

Human Health, Respiratory

43%

Human Health, Toxicity

43%

Ecotoxicity

43%

Fossil Energy Depletion

71%

Mineral Depletion

43%

Water Consumption

Land Use

886%Paper/Cardboard

Acidification

Result Categories

786%

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Composite/Other

6

43%
29%

Figure 19. Scope of studies included in the biobased FSW comparisons.
Biobased FSW tends to perform worse for eutrophication, water use, acidification, landuse, and toxicity potentials and slightly better for global warming potential
Biobased FSW was found to have significantly higher impacts in 191 comparisons andsignificantly lower impacts in 83 comparisons. Figure 20 shows the results for all suchcomparisons.
The results of comparing biobased and non-biobased FSW are like those for biobased and nonbiobased packaging, previously presented in Figure 12. Results are driven by the higher
production impacts for biobased products for most categories, though impacts vary by specificmaterial and EOL modeling assumptions. As with packaging, biobased FSW shows mixed
results tending toward improved performance for GWP and energy demand and tending toward
worse performance for eutrophication, water use, acidification, ozone depletion, land use, andtoxicity potentials impact categories. Out of 47 comparisons of the GWP of biobased FSW
products, 25 are significantly lower, while 13 are significantly higher than their non-biobased
counterparts. On the other hand, at least 61 percent of comparisons for the acidification,
eutrophication, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity categories result in higher impacts. The results
are even more extreme for the ozone depletion, water use, and land use categories, where at least
89 percent of comparisons result in significantly higher impacts. These impacts are mostly

86The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warecaused during the growing and processing of the feedstocks for biobased materials, as discussed
in the biobased packaging section.

-50

-40

-30

-20

Number of Comparisons
-10
0
10
20

30

40

Figure 20. Comparisons of biobased FSW products to non-biobased FSW products.

Global Warming
Mineral Depletion
Smog
Fossil Energy
Ionizing Radiation
PM Formation
Land Occupation
Human Toxicity
Ecotoxicity
Ozone Depletion
Acidification
Water Cons.
Eutrophication

Figure 20. Comparisons of biobased FSW products to non-biobased FSW products.
Ratios reflect the result for biobased FSW divided by the result for the non-biobased FSW. Thus ratios <1 indicate
biobased FSW performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive number of comparisons while
ratios >1 indicates biobased FSW performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as the negative number ofcomparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively
and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent counts of comparisons with ratios
0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result of comparisons representing meaningful
differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red comparisons

PLA is most studied biobased polymer used in FSW, and most comparisons between biobased
PLA and non-biobased FSW show significantly higher impacts for the FSW made of PLA.
These high impacts are caused by the emissions during feedstock production and resin
manufacturing for PLA. For example, Pladerer and colleagues (2008), Potting and van der Harst(2015), and Häkinnen and Vares (2010) compared incineration of PLA vs. PS and PET cups; PE
Americas (2009) and the Pro.mo industry group (2015) compared landfilling of PLA vs. PS cups
and dishes; and Franklin Associates (2011) compared cups made from PLA vs. EPS and general
purpose polystyrene (GPPS), 80 percent landfilled and 20 percent incinerated at EOL. Fromthese studies, a total of 211 comparisons were performed for FSW products made from PLA.
Across all impact categories, 129 comparisons show significantly higher impacts for PLA while
47 comparisons show significantly lower impacts for PLA.
Despite the overall higher impacts for PLA based FSW, the results vary depending on whichmaterials PLA is being compared against. Comparisons between PLA and PS/PP products
consistently resulted in ratios > 1.25 for PLA in most impact categories (Pro.mo industry group,
2015; Potting and van der Harst, 2015). Comparisons between PLA and PET yielded mixed
results: PLA generally resulted in lower impacts (ratios <0.75) for GWP and fossil energy
depletion categories, while resulting in significantly higher impacts for the acidification,
eutrophication, and water depletion categories (PE Americas, 2009). PLA only comparedfavorably for most impact categories against ceramic plates that are assumed to be used once and87

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Warethen landfilled (Broca 2008), which is an unusual scenario. This is due to the higher production
impacts from ceramics (specifically, energy used in kilns during the glazing of ceramic plates).
Like the recyclability attribute, the specific FSW products can influence environmental impacts.
For example, 19 out of 64 comparisons between landfilled PLA and paperboard cups against
PS/PP cups, all landfilled, resulted in significantly lower emissions for the biobased product. In
contrast, only six of 64 similar comparisons between PLA and paperboard dishes against PP/PS
dishes resulted in significantly lower impacts for the biobased product (Pro.mo Industry Group,2015). The lower number of low ratio comparisons for dishes is likely a result of the higher
weight of the dishes when compared to cups, and the fact that biobased material production
produces more emissions than production of PP/PS resin.
GWP for paper and paperboard FSW were also found to be sensitive to landfill degradation rates.
Franklin Associates (2011) studied paperboard cups, dishes, and clamshells with various
coatings that are landfilled at EOL and found that a low degradation rate lead to significantly
lower GWP estimates for paper based products while a high degradation rate lead to significantly
higher GWP. These results comprise 12 comparisons shown in Figure 20, six for each
assumption.

Compostable Food Service Ware
Scope
Seven studies provided 363 comparisons between compostable and non-compostable FSW.
Compostable FSW products studied include cups, plates, clamshells, and cutlery while thematerials studied include PLA, paperboard, cellulose pulp, and paper and board. All sevenstudies included the cradle to gate and EOL stages, while only four included the product use
stage. GWP was the most common impact category analyzed, as it was included in all sevenstudies. The least represented impact category is land use, present in only two studies. Sincecompostable materials included in the comparisons in this section are biobased, land use canpotentially represent a significant source of emissions due to feedstock growth, as mentioned in
the biobased FSW section.

88

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Table 9. Scope of studies included in the compostable FSW comparisonsRazza et al., 2009 Cutlery

Serving 1000 meals

Italy

UBA (German
Ministry of theEnvironment)
MethodImpact 2002+

Harnoto, 2013360 usesUnited States

Inventory based

20082

Clamshells

Percent of Total Number

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

100

100

100

x

x

14

57

Land Usex

Water Consumptionx

Mineral Depletion

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

57

100

100

x

x

x
x
x

86

71

29

[1] Update of previous publication[2] Included as part of sensitivity analysis, but quantitative results are not available for individual impact categories.
Studies ordered from most to least coverage of result categories

89x

Fossil Energy Depletionx

Ecotoxicityxx

Human Health, Toxicityx

Human Health, Respiratory

0.5 L drink

x

Smog

Germany,
Austria,
Switzerland

Cups

x

Ozone Depletion

Eco-Indicator 99

Cups

al, 20101
Pladerer et al.,x

Eutrophication, Marine

Belgium

Vercalsteren etx

Eutrophication,Freshwater

CML 2001 baseline,
Ecoinvent CED

xAcidification

The
Netherlands

Serving of one hot
beverage from vending
machine
100 L of beveragex

Global Warming

Potting and van Cups
der Harst, 2015x

Result Categories

End of LifeILCD 2011 midpoint

Product Use

Italy

Cradle-to-Gate

1,000 meals/drinks

Paper/Cardboard

LCIA Method
Impact 2002+

Laminated Paper Board

Functional Unit
Geography
1,000 single use tableware Italy

Bio-based Plastic Resins

Author and Year FSW ProductFieschi andTableware
Pretato, 2017
Pro.Mo, 2015
Dishes and cups

Boundary

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Materials

57

57

57

57

57

71

x
57

43

29

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

Materials

012Count of Studies (Total of 7)
3
4

7
100%

Bio-based Plastic Resins

100%

Laminated Paper Board

57%

Cradle-to-Gate

100%

Product Use

57%

End of Life

100%

Global Warming

100%

Acidification

Eutrophication, Marine

86%
71%

29%

Ozone Depletion

57%

Smog

57%

Human Health, Respiratory

57%

Human Health, Toxicity

57%

Ecotoxicity

57%

Fossil Energy Depletion

71%

Mineral Depletion

57%

Water Consumption
Land Use8

14%

Eutrophication, Freshwater

Result Categories

6

Fossil-based Plastic Resins

Paper/Cardboard

Boundary

5

43%
29%

Figure 21. Scope of studies included in the compostable FSW comparisons.
Composting FSW products generally performs worse than landfilling, incinerating, or
recycling
Figure 22 shows the comparisons of composted FSW against non-compostable FSW that is
landfilled, incinerated, or recycled. Figure 23 shows the comparisons of composted FSW against
compostable FSW that is incinerated or recycled. In both figures, composting compostable FSW
tends to result in increased impact potentials for most categories when compared with landfilling,incinerating, or recycling it. 261 comparisons showed significantly higher impacts forcompostable FSW while 37 comparisons showed significantly lower impacts across both figures.
For the comparisons between compostable and non-compostable FSW, the primary reason forthese results are the higher production impacts of compostable materials, which are mostly
biobased PLA and fiber-based products in the LCA studies identified. For the comparisons
between composted FSW and compostable FSW that is incinerated or recycled, the higher
impacts for composted FSW are driven by the relatively low avoided burdens credited tocompost vs. the avoided burdens credited to incineration or recycling of the compostablematerials (Potting and van der Harst 2015). These findings for compostable FSW are consistent
with those for compostable packaging previously presented in Figure 14. Select comparisons aredescribed in more detail below.

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The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

-50

-40

Number of Comparisons
-20
-10
0

-30

10

20

Figure 23. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of composted FSW with compostable FSW
Figure 22. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of composted FSW with non-compostablethat is not composted.
FSW.

Fossil Energy
Mineral Depletion
Ionizing Radiation
Water Cons.
Global Warming
Land Occupation
PM Formation
Smog
Ozone Depletion
Ecotoxicity
Acidification
Human Toxicity
Eutrophication

Figure 22. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of composted FSW with non-compostable
FSW. Ratios reflect the result for composted FSW divided by the result for the non-compostable FSW. Thus ratios<1 indicate compostable FSW performs better and are shown in the figure in green as the positive number ofcomparisons while ratios >1 indicates compostable FSW performs worse and are shown in the figure in red as thenegative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisons with ratios <0.75 and>1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red represent counts ofcomparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net result of comparisonsrepresenting meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red comparisons.

-12

-10

-8

Number of Comparisons
-6
-4
-2

0

Water Cons.
Land Occupation
PM Formation
Ionizing Radiation
Eutrophication
Smog
Acidification
Ozone Depletion
Human Toxicity
Fossil Energy
Global Warming
Mineral Depletion
Ecotoxicity

Figure 23. Comparisons of the life cycle impacts of composted FSW with compostable FSW
that is not composted. Ratios reflect the result for composted FSW divided by the result for compostable FSW
that is not composted. Thus ratios <1 indicate composted FSW performs better and are shown in the figure in green
as the positive number of comparisons while ratios >1 indicates composted FSW performs worse and are shown in
the figure in red as the negative number of comparisons. Dark green and dark red represent counts of comparisonswith ratios <0.75 and >1.25 respectively and are considered meaningful differences. Light green and light red
represent counts of comparisons with ratios 0.75-0.99 and 1.01-1.25 respectively. The figure is sorted by the net
result of comparisons representing meaningful differences, i.e. the number of dark green minus dark red
comparisons.

91The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware
Potting and van der Harst (2015) compared compostable PLA and paperboard cups, assumed tobe 100 percent composted to cups of the same materials assumed to be 100 percent incinerated or
100 percent recycled. All the comparisons showed at least marginally worse performance forcomposting across all impact categories, and 18 of 44 comparisons demonstrated significantly
worse performance, as shown in Figure 23. These results are consistent with those forcompostable packaging previously presented in Figure 15.
An interesting finding was that most of the comparisons between compostable and noncompostable tableware resulted in ratios lower than 1, which is not the case when only
considering compostable cups, dishes, or clamshells. Razza and colleagues (2009) and Fieschi
and Pretato (2018) analyzed the impacts of single-use compostable tableware products. The
items compared are knives, forks, and spoons in both studies, and in addition to biodegradable
napkins and tray liners made from single ply paper in Fieschi and Pretato (2018). Both studies
showed significantly GWP for compostable tableware when compared to non-compostable
tableware. Additionally, Razza and colleagues showed significantly lower impacts in the energy
depletion category, while Fieschi and Pretato showed marginally lower impacts in the mineral
and water depletion categories. The results from these studies are driven by the collection of thecompostable tableware and the food waste in a single waste stream, unlike the other studies that
did not explicitly assume that the FSW is co-collected along with other organic waste.
Combining both types of waste reduces the impacts that would otherwise be assigned to thedifferent waste collection and different EOL impacts for the two waste streams, as additional
compostable material is diverted to be composted, where the treatment of wet bio-waste
generates less impacts compared to incineration or landfilling. Additionally, the added organic
materials from food waste in the compost provide a greater amount of nutrients and aid thecomposting of FSW, which depending on its composition might not happen in isolation. Itshould be noted that co-collection of food waste and compostable packaging/FSW is restricted insome areas, such as Portland Oregon.

Summary – Food Service Ware
Fewer LCA studies have been performed for FSW than for packaging, therefore our findings forthe life cycle environmental impacts of FSW with recycled content and recyclable, compostable,
and biobased FSW are based on fewer comparisons than those for packaging presented in theprevious section. The available studies indicate that some, but not all, of the conclusions drawn
from the review of the various attributes for packaging also apply to FSW. No LCA studies
providing midpoint impact results for FSW with recycled content were identified. We found thatrecycling of FSW products generally results in lower impact potentials when compared withlandfilling or incineration. Biobased FSW is generally not preferable to fossil-based FSW. Thisis because production impacts for biobased materials tend to be higher than for conventional
materials. Compostable FSW is generally not preferable to non-compostable FSW, as they are
generally biobased, resulting in higher production impacts than fossil-based materials, andreceiving less credits at end-of-life than other waste management options. A possible exception
is a case where FSW is collected and composted with food waste due to improvements incollection efficiency and the increased nutrient content of the compost resulting from theincreased amount of organic material composted along with the FSW. However, the only studies
found that explored this option focused on compostable tableware and cutlery, which suggests
92

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Waremore research is needed to fully ascertain the benefits of co-collection of compostable FSW andother organic waste.

93

The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicatorsof the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

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