Plastic waste : LCA of different management scenarios

This thesis develops a Life Cycle Assessment to identify the most environmentally preferable strategy to manage plastic waste, which represents an issue since plastic can be recycled but also conveniently incinerated with energy recovery. Five scenarios are designed and analyzed in two geographical regions: western-central Europe and Northern Italy. The scenarios are designed considering different source separation schemes and strategies for the separation of the different plastics; the differences between the two regions are reflected by different waste compositions, energy recovery efficiencies, marginal energy and energy mix. The analysis is carried out by means of the software SimaPro and the characterization method used is EDIP97. The results show that the highest environmental performances are obtained when plastic is source separated with a high efficiency, to be subsequently mechanically selected to obtain material fractions that are recycled and residues with a high calorific value that substitute pet-coke in cement kilns. The results also highlight the importance of the choice of the marginal energy and the high contribution of landfilling to the environmental impacts in the Italian context.