Environmental Implications of Packaging Material Choice and Associated Solid Waste Management Alternatives

Abstract

Packaging materials (e.g., beverage containers) constitute a significant portion of the municipal solid waste. Frequently, alternative packaging systems (for example, aluminum versus glass containers, light weighting of plastic packaging by redesigning the production processes) are explored to identify cheaper, environmentally friendlier, and less waste generating options. Life cycle analysis is commonly used to estimate the environmental impacts in such comparative studies. This incorporates, in general, emission of environmental pollutants and energy consumption associated with the alternative production processes as well as the waste management processes. Although the solid waste management (SWM) processes may change from one municipality to another, these studies consider a fixed waste management option (e.g., recycling via a commingled recyclable material collection and recovery) for that packaging material. Also, changes in the packaging systems can potentially affect the way other waste items are managed, especially when the municipality is attempting to meet different SWM goals, such as diversion targets, emission targets, and budget constraints. The focus of this research is to investigate the impact on net environmental emissions due to the substitution of beverage container material (for example, aluminum for glass). Implications of changes in the packaging material on the SWM alternatives is first examined using an existing integrated solid waste management decision support tool (ISWM DST) that estimates the cost and life cycle inventories of emissions and energy consumption for SWM alternatives. Then the net environmental effects in terms of life cycle emissions associated with the product manufacturing processes as well as the SWM processes are examined for alternative packaging materials (e.g., aluminum and glass). This investigation is extended to examine impact of packaging material substitution on the tradeoff between SWM cost and greenhouse gas emissions. An illustrative case study is used to demonstrate the results.