PowerPoint Presentation

Dr. S. & S. S. Ghandhy Government Engineering College, Surat 395001

Presented by:Vaghela Chirag 110230113042Jaju Rashi 120230113004Metaliya Tejas 120230113022Gaur Shreya 120230113061Life Cycle Assessment Of Plastic Bags & Paper Bags Guided by: Dr. S.S.SinghMr. M. R. Vyas Mr. D. B. Chaudhri

TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroductionAction PlanWhat is LCA?ObjectivesLiterature ReviewScenario of plastic bags in IndiaScenario of paper bags in IndiaHistory of LCALCA MethodologyExpected OutcomeReferences

INTRODUCTIONThe actions of man have not only caused immense pollution but also degraded rich assets of environment. Resulted in some notable changes which in turn are affecting back humans only.One of the major threats to environment is excessive use and improper disposal of plastic bags in our daily life.Plastic bags take 500 1,000 years for degradation and contaminate the environment during its creation and clearance.To tackle this problem, we can use the life cycle assessment approach on plastic bags.Entire life cycle of product with respect to environmental aspects along with its potential impacts on the surroundings is studied. LCA - an ultimate approach to reduce pollution by juxtaposing and providing useful solutions.

ACTION PLAN

WHAT IS LCA?The "cradle-to-grave" impacts include the extraction of raw materials; the processing, manufacturing, and fabrication of the product; its distribution to the customer; utility; and the disposal or recovery of the product after use.

WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH LCA?Product or project development and improvementStrategic planningPublic policy makingMarketing and eco-declarations

LCA involves compiling of an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product or system, the evaluation of the potential environmental impacts and the interpretation of the results.

Raw material acquisition: which includes material harvesting and transportation to manufacturing process.

Processing: which involves material processing and transportation to sites.

Manufacturing: which involves product manufacture, assembly, packaging & transportation to final distribution.

Product life: which includes normal emissions & energy during normal product life & product use.

Waste management/end of life: which includes recycling, landfills, liquid waste, gas emission, etc.

OBJECTIVESTo evaluate different carrier bags used in India.

For assessment of different carrier bags used in India and their comparison.

To study the repercussions of different carrier bags on the environment.

For interpreting the results which helps in making a well-versed decision.

LITERATURE REVIEWTITLE: Life Cycle Assessment for Three Types of Grocery Bags - Recyclable Plastic; Compostable, Biodegradable Plastic; and Recycled, Recyclable Paper AUTHOR: CChet Chaffee and Bernard R. Yaros

ABSTRACT: The study show that single use plastic bags which made from polyethylene have many advantages over both compostable plastic bags made from EcoFlex and paper bags made with a minimum of 30% recycled fiber. When compared to 30% recycled fiber paper bags, polyethylene grocery bags use energy in terms of fuels for manufacturing, less oil, and less potable water. In addition, polyethylene plastic grocery bags emit fewer global warming gases, less acid rain emissions, and less solid wastes.

TITLE: Paper or plastic? Sustainability is a multidimensional problemAUTHOR: Sam Lohse

ABSTRACT: The author has talked about the environmental impacts of using paper bags,plastic bags, reusable/recyclable plastic bags and paper bags, by using LCA technique for comparison. Humans have become adept at manufacturing plastics from petroleum with high efficiency, whereas the paper making process requires extensive energy use and releases pollutants that have an unpleasant smell. On the other hand,manufacturing of cloth bags has a high thirst for water and pesticides used can harm the human health. Sustainability metrics is suggested by author to measure their environmental consequences. In the conclusion, the author favours reusable or recyclable plastic bags as the greenest option of all.

TITLE: Life cycle assessment of supermarket carrier bagsAUTHOR: Dr. Chris Edwards and Jonna Meyhoff Fry

ABSTRACT: The environmental impact of carrier bags is conquered by resource use and production. Transport, secondary packaging and end-of-life processing generally have a slight influence on their environmental performance. Recycling or composting generally produces only a small reduction in global warming potential and abiotic depletion.

TITLE: Comparison of Environmental Impact of Plastic, Paper and Cloth BagsAUTHOR: Kirsty Bell and Suzie Cave

ABSTRACT: All bags have an impact. The best solution would be to use a cotton bag several hundred times, probably using it constantly for years. If you are not going to do that, a plastic bag reused as a bin liner is the next best option, better than paper. Avoid accepting a plastic bag unless you need one, though. So we say that the Environmental impact for Cloth bags, Plastic bags and paper bags is increasing respectively.

SCENARIO OF PLASTIC BAGS IN INDIAThe use of plastic bags is gradually prospering in India.According to a survey by The Times Of India conducted in megacities, 99% of vegetable and fruit vendors, and 95% of meat and fish vendors contacted during the study, were using plastic bags.Out of 834 respondents who were interrogated, 78% of the consumers said they selected plastic bags. Even worse, 333 users said they use and throw plastic bags, only 75 said they try to reuse.This survey, hence, clearly shows that the use of plastic bags in the country is definitely on a large scale.However, owing to the harmful effects of plastic bags, many states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, U.P., including Delhi, are posing bans on the manufacture as well as usage of such bags by people.

SCENARIO OF PAPER BAGS IN INDIAPaper bags emerged as a 100% recyclable and reusable option over plastic bags.Banning plastic bags opened new opportunities for paper bags and hence making it more acceptable and famous among consumers.Now a days, a majority of malls and supermarkets prefer to give paper bags to their customers.These bags are easy to carry and handle.A noticeable benefit of a paper bag is that it contains 40% post consumer recycled material.Moreover, when compared with plastic bags, paper bags decomposes much more faster and easily and thus possess less environmental impacts.However, every coin has two faces, and therefore on some basis paper bags can be seen as a problem too.

HISTORY OF LCADuring the 1970s and 80s, many approaches to reducing environmental harm included regulatory control of point-source waste releases. These approaches were based on a single stage of a products life, such as production, or a single issue, such as wastewater, and thus they were not particularly effective in achieving net environmental benefits. What they did achieve was a change in the way people thought about business and environmental management.In the late 1980s, life-cycle assessment emerged as a tool to better understand the risks, opportunities and trade-offs of product systems as well as the nature of environmental impacts.In 1990, the term life cycle assessment (LCA) was coined.

Beginning in 1993, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) tasked a small group for making a recommendation regarding the need to standardize LCA.

The groups recommendation was to proceed with standardization, and by 1997 the ISO 14040 standard for Life cycle assessment Principles and framework was complete.

There were more additions to the standards over the years and LCA use continues to expand and is now being heavily integrated into green building schemes around the world.

LCA is currently used to know about the life cycle of a product.

This process is quiet complex and has its own problems like complexity. However, now the work is going on development of a software so that the complexity can be eliminated.

Also the steps are being taken to use LCA for every product

LCA METHODOLOGYNumbers of methods are used today for LCA, some according to international standards while others are original to the application.

An approach that has emerged parallel to LCA is Well-to-Wheels (WTW) study.

They are similar with the exception that WTW studies are specic to transport applications whereas LCA studies can be applied to any product system.

LCA studies tend to examine a wider range of impact categories, while WTW studies have better access to primary data.

LCA methodology consists of four main phases First phase: Goal and scope definitionSecond phase: Inventory analysisThird phase: Impact assessmentFourth phase: Interpretation

Goal and scope definitionClearly defining goal and scope of an LCA is of crucial importance in order not to provide confusing results and misleading interpretations.The purpose of LCA is stated, product is analysed and system boundary is determined.

Functional UnitProduct systemSystem BoundaryData Quality

Functional UnitThe performance distinctiveness of the different processes of LCA can be examined by defining a unit, which scales the flows to a familiar context. The functional unit can be seen as the pith of any LCA and allows an unbiased comparison of the results. The functional unit for our project is defined as mass (kg) and number of plastic bags and paper bags used in a month by a consumer.

In defining the scope of the LCA, ISO requires a clear statement of the product systems that will be examined. The two product systems that will be studied are the plastic bags and paper bags.

Product System

System BoundaryThe system boundary for LCA links the technological system and nature.

Ideally, all the inputs and outputs which are fundamental to the function of a product should be followed upstream and downstream to flows of energy or matter; however the compilation of such a broad data set requires vast resources.

The system boundaries are made to define the exterior interfaces of the product system.

Hence, the prime motive for determining the system boundary must be to include in the system the activities relevant to the purpose of the study and is related to the goal definition.

Defining the system boundary at an early stage prevents over allocation of resources to the areas that have an insignificant impact on the final results.

Data Quality Data quality is one prime factor on which the reliability of study depends. According to the ISO, data should have following parameters:

RepresentativenessAccuracyReproducibilityAge desiredGeographical bearingTechnologyCompletenessUniformity

Life Cycle Inventory

The compilation of the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is an enormous task. It requires very detailed enumeration of total energy and material flows for each part of the system to be examined and a thorough understanding of the critical parameters affecting each process.Process flow diagrams are used to outline the relationships between unit processes and flows across the system boundaries.Each unit process must be qualitatively described to ensure a thorough understanding, and to avoid any overlap.

Data CollectionData ValidationAllocation

Life Cycle Impact Assessment

The main objective of LCA is to determine the outputs to the environment by calculating the material and energy balance. Outputs with similar environmental impacts can be grouped and classified to group their environmental impact. This classification quantifies the potential environmental impact of the product system and simplifies the result to a single parameter, such that global warming, smog creation etc. The group classifications are referred to as Impact Categories, and the standard ISO sets out the guidelines for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA).ClassificationSelection of impact categories

Interpretation

This is the final phase of LCA, which makes the study through the evaluation of data collected and calculated; it provides feedback for changes to the other phases of LCA. Three elements must be satisfied in interpretation phase: Identification of significant issues based on the results of the LCI and LCIA.Evaluation which does completeness and consistency checks.Conclusions, recommendations and reporting.

EXPECTED OUTCOMEThe amount of pollution generating due to the plastic and paper bags during its life cycle-extraction to disposal would be calculated to give the energy outputs.

There are chances that plastic bags may cause more pollution than paper bags on the basis of energy required and waste generated during its life cycle.

However, there can be also an opportunity where pager bags can become more polluting due to problems during extraction or other processes.

This outcome is predicted based on the research done so far and by previously collected data and studying literature and patents of LCA of plastic bags and paper bags.

REFERENCES(https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/life-cycle-assessment-three-types-grocery-bags-recyclable-plastic-compostable-biode)(http://www.letstalkplastics.com/facts/plastic-bags-versus-paper-bags)(https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf)(http://www.europeanplasticfilms.eu/docs/Jamesandgrant1.pdf)(http://www.truereusablebags.com/pdf/lca_plastic_bags.pdf)(http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/publications/2011/environment/3611.pdf)(http://www.smithbateson.co.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/Carrier_Bag_LCA_Research_Review_for_Smith_Bateson.pdf)(http://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/20563/Sevitz_Environmental(2003).pdf?sequence=1) (http://www.truereusablebags.com/pdf/lca_plastic_bags.pdf)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessmentISO14040 - 43

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