Use of LCA and design to study sustainable alternatives to plastic takeaway cutlery and crockery

• Autor(a) principal: Gautam, Anirudh Muralidharan
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/11367
• topic: CML2000; Crockery; Cutlery; Eco-friendly; LCA; Sustainability; ACV; Cutelaria; Louça ecológica; Sustentabilidade

This thesis looks on alternatives to plastic takeaway cutlery and crockery from areca palm and coconut tree by products. Most of the take away materials used today are made of plastic that is disposed of upon single use. This presents a huge challenge in terms of waste management and pollution. It is widely known that plastic is produced from polymers generated by fossil oil that is explored from the soil and whose natural reserves are limited. Due to its nature, it takes several hundred to thousand years to decompose plastics, releasing toxic substances in the process. This work focuses on reviving the methods and knowledge that existed in the southern and central parts of the Indian subcontinent for producing sustainable goods used in everyday life, aiming to make sustainable cutlery and crockery. The materials that are under study are palm areca sheaths, coconut fibre, shells and banana fibres. A market analysis, design, life cycle analysis and deeper research on the fabrication was made. The life cycle analysis (LCA) was conducted from data obtained from the Eco invent v2 atabase. CML 2000 method was used to assess and compare the data. Existing data from the database was considered to estimate the final impact through weighted averages. The results show that the materials under study perform better than conventional plastic materials with respect to emissions and other parameters. The main impact involved in the production of the various products was found out to be transportation. When imported and produced in bulk, costs and impacts of the suggested alternatives are lower than those of the conventional products. Comparing results for cardboard and palm areca boxes for example the Global warming potential for the alternatives were 7.07E-02 compared to 11.2E-02 kg CO2 equivalent for the conventional products. Similarly, when plastic plates and palm plates were compared .46E-08 and 4.62E-09 kg CFC 11 eq were the values for ozone layer depletion. Most other results follow the same route which is a clear indication that most of our alternatives have a good environmental performance for a lower or the same price.