TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental potential of recycling of plastic wastes in Australia based on life cycle assessment

AU - Soenmez, Can

AU - Venkatachalam, Venkateshwaran

AU - Spierling, Sebastian

AU - Endres, Hans Josef

AU - Barner, Leonie

N1 - Funding Information: The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access Fund of Leibniz Universität Hannover.

PY - 2024/3

Y1 - 2024/3

N2 - Plastic consumption in Australia is steadily increasing and is estimated to reach 8.8 million tonnes by 2050. Alongside plastic consumption, plastic waste management (PWM) faces rising environmental challenges in Australia as most of them are currently landfilled. Therefore, the Australian government has published a policy to transition to a circular economy as well as a new strategy for PWM with higher recycling rates. To understand the implications of the policy changes and the environmental impacts of End-of-Life (EoL) options, life cycle thinking is necessary. This study evaluates and compares the environmental impacts of the Australian PWM for 2018–2019 to the policy envisaged for 2030 that includes higher recycling rates and waste export bans from a life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective. From the results, it can be seen that the current PWM is majorly linear (take, make, use and dispose) as most of the wastes gets landfilled and exported to other countries but the future PWM strategy for 2030 results in higher resource recovery and significant reduction in the environmental impacts. There is a reduction in Global Warming Potential (GWP) by a factor of almost 10, if the recycling rates increase from 13 to 70%. The state and the federal governments along with other stakeholders need to implement stringent measures to recover plastic wastes if a transition to a circular economy is to happen by 2030.

AB - Plastic consumption in Australia is steadily increasing and is estimated to reach 8.8 million tonnes by 2050. Alongside plastic consumption, plastic waste management (PWM) faces rising environmental challenges in Australia as most of them are currently landfilled. Therefore, the Australian government has published a policy to transition to a circular economy as well as a new strategy for PWM with higher recycling rates. To understand the implications of the policy changes and the environmental impacts of End-of-Life (EoL) options, life cycle thinking is necessary. This study evaluates and compares the environmental impacts of the Australian PWM for 2018–2019 to the policy envisaged for 2030 that includes higher recycling rates and waste export bans from a life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective. From the results, it can be seen that the current PWM is majorly linear (take, make, use and dispose) as most of the wastes gets landfilled and exported to other countries but the future PWM strategy for 2030 results in higher resource recovery and significant reduction in the environmental impacts. There is a reduction in Global Warming Potential (GWP) by a factor of almost 10, if the recycling rates increase from 13 to 70%. The state and the federal governments along with other stakeholders need to implement stringent measures to recover plastic wastes if a transition to a circular economy is to happen by 2030.

KW - Australia

KW - Circular economy

KW - End-of-Life

KW - Life cycle assessment

KW - Plastics

KW - Recycling

KW - Waste management

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85185485880&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10163-024-01901-1

DO - 10.1007/s10163-024-01901-1

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85185485880

VL - 26

SP - 755

EP - 775

JO - Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management

JF - Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management

SN - 1438-4957

IS - 2

ER -