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Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics

Current rising concerns about environmental and climate impacts in production, consumption and end-of-life of plastics have led to efforts to switch from linear to circular economy of plastics in Europe. Greenhouse gas emissions are likely to decrease with a transition to a circular system; however,...

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Autores principales: Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna, Rommens, Tom, Vanderreydt, Ive, Mortensen, Lars
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9282144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35855295
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00192-8
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author Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna
Rommens, Tom
Vanderreydt, Ive
Mortensen, Lars
author_facet Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna
Rommens, Tom
Vanderreydt, Ive
Mortensen, Lars
author_sort Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna
collection PubMed
description Current rising concerns about environmental and climate impacts in production, consumption and end-of-life of plastics have led to efforts to switch from linear to circular economy of plastics in Europe. Greenhouse gas emissions are likely to decrease with a transition to a circular system; however, a systematic and integrated perspective on plastics and the carbon cycle is currently missing in the debate on plastics. In this study, a model to estimate greenhouse gas emissions of the current mostly linear plastics value chain of the EU in 2018 and a future scenario, 2025 model, were created. By 2025 if current policy targets are reached, the plastic packaging recycling rate should be 50%, PET-based drinking bottles should include 25% recycled content, 77% collection target for plastic bottles, 10 Mt recyclates should enter the markets, uptake of bio-based plastics is estimated by European bioplastics to increase from current 1 to 1.32% and landfilling will continue to decrease according to the current trend at 3.85%. Total greenhouse gas emissions caused by the current plastics value chain are estimated at 208 million tonnes of CO2-eq. The 2025 model estimates that total plastics value chain emissions will be 182 Mt of CO2-eq. Reduction potential is approximately 26 Mt of CO2-eq or 13%.
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spelling pubmed-92821442022-07-15 Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna Rommens, Tom Vanderreydt, Ive Mortensen, Lars Circ Econ Sustain Original Paper Current rising concerns about environmental and climate impacts in production, consumption and end-of-life of plastics have led to efforts to switch from linear to circular economy of plastics in Europe. Greenhouse gas emissions are likely to decrease with a transition to a circular system; however, a systematic and integrated perspective on plastics and the carbon cycle is currently missing in the debate on plastics. In this study, a model to estimate greenhouse gas emissions of the current mostly linear plastics value chain of the EU in 2018 and a future scenario, 2025 model, were created. By 2025 if current policy targets are reached, the plastic packaging recycling rate should be 50%, PET-based drinking bottles should include 25% recycled content, 77% collection target for plastic bottles, 10 Mt recyclates should enter the markets, uptake of bio-based plastics is estimated by European bioplastics to increase from current 1 to 1.32% and landfilling will continue to decrease according to the current trend at 3.85%. Total greenhouse gas emissions caused by the current plastics value chain are estimated at 208 million tonnes of CO2-eq. The 2025 model estimates that total plastics value chain emissions will be 182 Mt of CO2-eq. Reduction potential is approximately 26 Mt of CO2-eq or 13%. Springer International Publishing 2022-07-14 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9282144/ /pubmed/35855295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00192-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Paper
Tenhunen-Lunkka, Anna
Rommens, Tom
Vanderreydt, Ive
Mortensen, Lars
Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title_full Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title_fullStr Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title_full_unstemmed Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title_short Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Potential of European Union’s Circularity Related Targets for Plastics
title_sort greenhouse gas emission reduction potential of european union’s circularity related targets for plastics
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9282144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35855295
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00192-8
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