Circular economy of expanded polystyrene container production: Environmental benefits of household waste recycling considering renewable energies

Energy Reports

F.X. Jervis¹  C.M. Moreira²  J.L. Amaya³  M. Soto³  J. Hidalgo-Crespo⁴  L. Banguera⁵ 

[1] Corresponding author at: Universidad de Guayaquil, Facultad de Ingeniería Industrial, Av. Dr. Jiménez Lince y Av. Juan Tanca Marengo, 090501 Guayaquil, Ecuador.;Universidade da Coruña, Facultade de Ciencias, Rúa da Fraga 10, 15008 A Coruña, Galiza, España, Spain;ESPOL Polytechnic University, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica y Ciencias de la Producción, Campus Gustavo Galindo Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, P.O. Box 09-01-5863, Guayaquil, Ecuador;Universidad de Guayaquil, Facultad de Ingeniería Industrial, Av. Dr. Jiménez Lince y Av. Juan Tanca Marengo, 090501 Guayaquil, Ecuador;Universidade da Coruña, Facultade de Ciencias, Rúa da Fraga 10, 15008 A Coruña, Galiza, España, Spain;

关键词: Recycling;    Single-use plastics;    Expanded polystyrene (EPS) waste;    Circular economy;    Life cycle assessment (LCA);    Renewables;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Plastic industry is ubiquitous worldwide, and the generation of “plastic waste” has been steadily increasing to the point of being considered a high impact pollutant. The expanded polystyrene (EPS) plastic industry aware of the issue is interested on trying recycling post-consumer material. Through a recent study made in an alliance between the private sector and the academy, the feasibility of the EPS “mechanical” recycling was proven; therefore, a possible solution through a circular economy model. The aim of the present paper was to investigate the potential environmental impacts avoided by the circular economy scenario previously developed, through a life cycle assessment (LCA) performed for the city of Guayaquil, where 64% of all the plastic manufacturing industries in the country are located. The entire life cycle of 1.00 kg of 5 × 5 inch. food containers were assessed from the production stage until its end-of-life stage: focusing on three different valorization paths, circular economy closed-loop (container-to-container) proposal with electricity share of 2019 and another with the 2027 future one, and traditional linear economy (container-to-landfill). Results showed that the scenario C that considers the recycling of post-consumer EPS waste and the electricity share proposed for 2027 have lower impacts in 14 out of 16 categories, in specific for the Land use (−31%), Ozone Depletion (−28%), Acidification (−24%) and Terrestrial and Marine Eutrophication (−21%). These results strongly suggest that the recycling of these kind of plastic waste could benefit the environment greatly.

【 授权许可】

Unknown