Material Flow Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment of Polyethylene Terephthalate and Polyolefin Plastics Supply Chains in the United States

Abstract

Plastics are useful and beneficial materials that contribute to an improved quality of life, yet they generate significant solid wastes and emissions and consume significant energy resources. Systems analysis is incomplete on current linear production systems of plastics supply chains and their associated processes. Our study combines material flow and life cycle assessment data sets of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and the main polyolefin polymers in the United States, comprising over 70% of plastics flows. This study estimates the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption of these supply chains, including transportation and end-of-life processes, lacking in prior studies. We calculate annual GHG emissions and energy consumption of these plastic supply chains to be 101 MMT CO2-eq and 3248 PJ in 2019, respectively. The GHG emissions of these supply chains represented 1.5% of the total U.S. emissions and 5% of the total U.S. industry-related GHG emissions. The total energy consumption of these supply chains represented 3.1% of the total U.S. energy consumption in 2019. Transportation of PET and polyolefin plastic materials contributes 5% and 2% to the total supply chain GHG emissions and energy consumption, respectively. This baseline study provides a benchmark and enables a comparison to future circular production systems for plastics in the United States.

Circular Economy Sustainability Analysis Framework for Plastics: Application for Poly(ethylene Terephthalate) (PET)

“…LCA also uses resource consumption data to calculate the environmental impacts during the different stages of the process. 18 The integration of multiple methodologies for the evaluation of CE�for instance, combining MFA with LCA�provides analysis capable of identifying trade-offs between circularity and environmental impacts, 13,14,19 as suggested by earlier studies evaluating the sustainability of CE strategies for plastic packaging. 16,20,21 Most studies have evaluated the impacts of CE strategies as alternate waste management practices rather than as production technologies to translate from linear to circular manufacturing.…”

Seven decades of plastic flows and stocks in the United States and pathways toward zero plastic pollution by 2050

“…Strikingly, the United States is the world's largest producer of plastic waste and also tops the world in annual per‐capita plastic waste generation in 2016 (Law et al., 2020). Studies have investigated the material flows of all plastics (Di et al., 2021; Heller et al., 2020; Law et al., 2020), or a single polymer (polyethylene terephthalate or PET) (Chaudhari et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2022), in the United States for a snapshot of 1 year. Long‐term, longitudinal dynamic material flow analysis of plastics is only available for PET in the United States (Kuczenski & Geyer, 2010).…”

Rapid Polyolefin Plastic Hydrogenolysis Mediated by Single-Site Heterogeneous Electrophilic/Cationic Organo-group IV Catalysts

“…Globally, 18 or 24% of nonfiber plastic waste is recycled or incinerated, respectively, and less than 10% is recycled in the United States . Although preferable to accumulation/landfilling, recycling is typically carried out by a mechanical or melt-and-remold process, yielding a product with inferior thermal, optical, and mechanical resilience. , Plastic incineration recovers only a fraction of the energy used in the production of the material as heat and may coproduce toxic combustion byproducts and greenhouse CO 2 , making it unacceptable as a “green” process. , …”