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Title: | Development of an integrated sustainability matrix to depict challenges and trade-offs of introducing bio-based plastics in the food packaging value chain |
Authors: | Gerassimidou, S Martin, O Chapman, SP Hahladakis, JN Iacovidou, E |
Keywords: | plastics;bioplastics;life cycle;sustainability;holistic view;plastic waste management |
Issue Date: | 3-Dec-2020 |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Citation: | Gerassimidou, S. et al. (2020) 'Development of an integrated sustainability matrix to depict challenges and trade-offs of introducing bio-based plastics in the food packaging value chain', Journal of Cleaner Production, 286, 125378, pp. 1 - 16. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125378. |
Abstract: | Copyright 2020 The Author(s). As global plastic pollution is gaining increased attention, the use of bio-based plastics, especially in the food packaging sector, is growing in popularity. While this move is regarded as a solution to plastic pollution, it may shift or create detrimental impacts elsewhere in the production, consumption, management system, a possibility that is underexplored. The aim of the present study is to identify the potential challenges and trade-offs associated with the introduction of bio-based plastics in the food packaging industry, and highlight issues relevant to policy and decision-making processes. We employ a whole system approach to review the literature and assess holistically the performance of bio-based plastics, which looks at the entire lifecycle of bio-based plastic packaging (i.e. production, consumption, management) and considers wider aspects in the environmental, economic, social and technical sustainability domains. Based on our findings, we developed, and present herein, a sustainability decision matrix, a novel guiding tool, which can provide important insights into the potential impacts of the introduction of larger amount of bio-based plastic food packaging in the future and support decision-making processes. In conclusion, our preliminary high-level assessment of the bio-based plastics production, use and management system clearly reveals a number of blind-spots across the entire system that are currently ignored by the use of single-dimensional approaches. This highlights that the sustainability assessment of specific bio-based polymers requires thorough and further research that takes into account the type of feedstock, infrastructure availability, and interactions between sustainability domains, to ensure that the substitution of petrochemical-based plastics with bio-based alternatives in food packaging sector will not lead to unintended consequences. |
URI: | https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/21963 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125378 |
ISSN: | 0959-6526 |
Other Identifiers: | ORCID iDs: Syridoula Gerassimidou https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3529-5761; Olwenn V. Martin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2724-7882; Stephen P. Chapman https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6982-4591; Eleni Iacovidou https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6841-0995. 125378 |
Appears in Collections: | Brunel Design School Research Papers |
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FullText.pdf | Crown Copyright © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). | 2.29 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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