From paper to PLAstic: Life cycle assessment on the feedstock of polylactic acid production

Abstract

Plastics are an important part of everyday life. However, along the life cycle of the product various negative aspects occur. These negative aspects are related to the extraction of fossil fuels, production and waste management. Bio-based plastics are often presented as an alternative to fossil based plastics, however, bio-based plastics also encounter criticism regarding their environmental characteristics. The use of agricultural land to grow biomass and produce sucrose or starch for polylactic acid (PLA) production competes with food production. A consortium of Dutch companies is exploring the possibilities to produce PLA from a cellulose waste stream of the paper production industry.

In the thesis a life cycle assessment has been performed in order to compare the environmental profile (measured as the greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and land use) of paper waste based PLA production and regular PLA production from sugar cane and corn. The thesis concludes the new, paper waste, production method does not significantly lower the environmental impacts, but it is still within the margins of error of regular PLA production. Future research has to validate this conclusion by increased understanding and data availability of the new paper waste production process.