| Title | Assessing scaling effects of circular economy strategies: A case study on plastic bottle closed-loop recycling in the USA PET market |
|---|---|
| ID_Doc | 16307 |
| Authors | Lonca, G; Lesage, P; Majeau-Bettez, G; Bernard, S; Margni, M |
| Title | Assessing scaling effects of circular economy strategies: A case study on plastic bottle closed-loop recycling in the USA PET market |
| Year | 2020 |
| Published | |
| Abstract | The Circular Economy (CE) movement is inspiring new governmental policies along with company strategies. This led to the emergence of a plethora of indicators to quantify the "circularity" of individual companies or products. Approaches behind these indicators builds mainly on two implicit assumptions. The first is that closing material loops at product level leads to improvements in material efficiency for the economy as a whole. The second assumption is that maximizing material circularity contributes to mitigate environmental impacts. We test these two assumptions at different scales with a case study on the circularity of PET in the USA market. The Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) reveals that closing the material loops at the product level increases material circularity in one brand and in the USA plastic bottle market but not in the USA PET market as a whole. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results reveal that increasing closed loop recycling of PET bottles is environmentally beneficial from product-level assessment scope. When expanding the scope to the whole PET market, recycling PET into film, fiber and sheet industrial sectors results being more material efficient and environmental preferable, unless the postconsumer reclamation rate is significantly improved. Thus, we demonstrate that adopting a systemic approach for CE assessment is essential ; instead of looking at one particular product and seeking the best circular case with respect to a specific material content, we suggest to looking at the whole set of products served by the specific material, and to seek the best material market-wide circular case. |
Similar Articles
| ID | Score | Article |
|---|---|---|
22726
|
Urgun-Demirtas, M; Benavides, PT; Gracida-Alvarez, UR; Riggio, S Systemic approaches to model plastics circularity(2022) | |
| 22698
|
Vadoudi, K; Deckers, P; Demuytere, C; Askanian, H; Verney, V Comparing a material circularity indicator to life cycle assessment: The case of a three-layer plastic packaging(2022) | |
| 29250
|
Schulte, A; Kampmann, B; Galafton, C Measuring the Circularity and Impact Reduction Potential of Post-Industrial and Post-Consumer Recycled Plastics(2023)Sustainability, 15.0, 16 | |
| 4364
|
Ghosh, T; Avery, G; Bhatt, A; Uekert, T; Walzberg, J; Carpenter, A Towards a circular economy for PET bottle resin using a system dynamics inspired material flow model(2023) | |
| 421
|
Haupt, M; Hellweg, S Measuring the environmental sustainability of a circular economy(2019) | |
| 28975
|
Nordahl, SL; Scown, CD Recommendations for life-cycle assessment of recyclable plastics in a circular economy(2024)Chemical Science, 15.0, 25 | |
| 23801
|
Callewaert, P; Raadal, HL How should we move towards plastic circularity?(2024) | |
| 3455
|
Tashkeel, R; Rajarathnam, GP; Wan, WL; Soltani, B; Abbas, A Cost-Normalized Circular Economy Indicator and Its Application to Post-Consumer Plastic Packaging Waste(2021)Polymers, 13, 20 | |
| 3074
|
Harris, S; Martin, M; Diener, D Circularity for circularity's sake? Scoping review of assessment methods for environmental performance in the circular economy.(2021) | |
| 16651
|
Havas, V; Falk-Andersson, J; Deshpande, P Small circles: The role of physical distance in plastics recycling(2022) |