Keynote: In Single-Use Plastics, the Issue is Single-Use, Not Plastic

Although plastic seems to have become the icon for “environmental evil”, a comprehensive and scientific view on the issue and the alternatives is seldom provided. Life Cycle Assessment has historically provided such holistic view by encompassing the entire life cycle of a product and a comprehensive set of environmental indicators. However, the more recent attention on plastic litter in the environment, particularly the marine ecosystems, had not yet been integrated into the LCA methodology. This has prevented the tool to be used to guide decision making and orient the global discourse. Decisions have thus been made based on a plastic-reduction focus, without considering the potential impacts of the alternatives that would fill the function left unfilled by the plastic reduction. The LCA methodology has been rapidly developing impact indicators to include plastic litter and damage on the environment, completing the life cycle environmental profile of different plastic applications, and although still in their infancy, findings can already point us to important aspects to consider when wanting to address environmental issues associated with plastic and consider them when designing a new packaging. The complex and inter-related issues of plastic sustainability include waste management system and end-of-life disposal, degradability in environment, weight and density of the plastic item, shape of the macro and then microplastics, effect in the aquatic and marine environment, persistence and burial in the sediments, entanglement and toxicity, carbon intensity of the production, and many more. These can now start to be disentangled and put into perspective — with each other and with the alternatives - with an objective and scientific basis using life cycle assessment.