Cost-Normalized Circular Economy Indicator and Its Application to Post-Consumer Plastic Packaging Waste

This work presents an adaptation of the material circularity indicator (MCI) that incorporates economic consideration. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) has developed the MCI to characterize the sustainability, viz., the “circularity”, of a product by utilizing life cycle assessment data of a product range rather than a single product unit. Our new “circo-economic” indicator (MCIE), combines product MCI in relation to total product mass, with a cost-normalization against estimated plastic recycling costs, for both separately collected and municipal solid waste. This is applied to assess Dutch post-consumer plastic packaging waste comprising polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), film, and mixed plastic products. Results show that MCIE of separate plastic collection (0.81) exceeds municipal solid waste (0.73) for most plastics, thus suggesting that under cost normalization, there is greater conformity of separately collected washed and milled goods to the circular economy. Cost sensitivity analyses show that improvements in plastic sorting technology and policy incentives that enable the production of MSW washed and milled goods at levels comparable to their separately collected counterparts may significantly improve their MCI. We highlight data policy changes and industry collaboration as key to enhanced circularity—emphasized by the restrictive nature of current Dutch policy regarding the release of plastic production, recycling, and costing data, with a general industry reluctance against market integration of weight-benchmarked recycled plastics.