Cereplast, a producer of biobased sustainable bioplastics, has been under third party evaluation through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
Through LCA, the environmental impacts of traditional and renewable plastics, starting from raw material to end product, were evaluated and it reported that Cereplast Hybrid 101 is better to the environment when compared to other traditional plastics.
The LCA study was conducted by Sustainmetrics, which compared Cereplast Hybrid 101 bioplastic to polypropylene (PP), high impact polystyrene (HIPS), low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The third party peer review of the study is ongoing and will be concluded in two weeks.
The LCA method measures the overall environmental impact, considering the materials and energy utilization, waste generation and emissions and then a rating was given to the cumulative environmental impact of each plastic, which includes ecotoxicity, climate change and depletion of ozone layer. Further, the cumulative environmental impacts were converted into a single ReCiPe eco-points score.
Impact evaluation was carried out using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology for carbon footprint, CML methodology for abiotic resource depletion and ReCiPe single score methodology for overall environmental impact.
The results show that global warming potential was decreased by 32% when Hybrid 101 replaced PP. With 1,000,000 lbs of replacement, 800,000 lbs of CO2 eq. environmental impact reduction is observed and with 0.1% of global demand replacement, huge amounts carbon dioxide can be saved.
Source: http://www.cereplast.com