LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 3B: PACKAGING 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
sidered as being at the boundary of this system as the recovered material has no changes in its inherent properties.
The paraffin obtained is used to replace the petrochemical naphtha that is a precursor of polyethylene
production. This reverse flow was called “recycled polyethylene” and was applied to discount the use of
virgin polyethylene. Fig. 1 shows the boundaries of the system evaluated, along with the recycling model
used. This method was used for modelling the system in 2000 with no recycling and the system in 2011 for
recycling rates of 0%, 27%, 35%, 50% and 70%.
T
Forestry (wood
production)
Cellulose
production
Cardboard
manufacturing
Cellulose virgin kg
T
Cardboard
Aseptic laminate production with x % recycling
Milk consumption
Post-consumer packaging recycling:
cellulose fibers (Rc kg)
PE/Al residue (PEAl kg)
Paraffin (P kg) and aluminum (Al
plasma kg) recovered by plasma
Oil extraction
Petrochemical
naphtha
(N- P) kg
Ethylene
production
Polyethylene
Milk filling (1,000 litres)
Figure 1. Model used to account the production and recovering of the aseptic milk packaging (open-loop
with closed-loop recycling procedure and expanded system boundaries).
2.4 Environmental impact categories evaluated
T
Recovered
cellulose fibres
(Rc kg)
PEAl for plasma
kg
T
T
Paraffin (P kg)
Recycled
ethylene
production
Recycled
polyethylene
T T T
R% – recycling rate
PE/Al roof tiles
production (Rt kg)
Bauxite mining
Alumina
production
Primary
aluminum
production
Aluminum foil
Final disposal
in landfills
The inventories obtained were evaluated according to the CML 2001 methodology developed by the Center
of Environmental Science at Leiden University (Guinnée et al., 2001) and updated in December, 2007 for the
following environmental impact categories and in accordance with the principles of ISO Standard 14044:
abiotic depletion potential – ADP (kg Sb equiv), global warming potential – GWP (kg CO2 equiv.), acidifica-
T
PEAl kg – PEAl for plasma
kg
T
Emissions
Inverse process of virgin aluminum
production:
(Al tile equivalent to Rt kg)
Resources
T
Al virgin kg
Al plasma kg
T
Milk production
and sterilization
Emissions
from milk
consumption
Milk
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