Life Cycle Assessment of Biodegradable Cups

Abstract

It is known that one of the most concerning issues for human, these days, is protecting the environment from various amount of waste. Therefore, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developing as a tool towards potential solutions. This thesis will focus on clarifying biodegradable cups’ production regarding environmental impacts throughout the LCA via the GaBi Education Software Package. To evaluate intimately the environmental impacts of biodegradable cups, cradle-to-grave would be the most suitable unit process applied among all LCA’s system boundaries. In more details, cradle-to-gave was defined as life cycle phases from raw material acquisition to end-of-life phase (i.e. waste treatment). According to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards, LCA is conducted in four distinct phases which are Goal and Scope Definition, Inventory Analysis, Impact Assessment, and Interpretation. The input and output data of both material and energy was studied and collected throughout the inventory stage on GaBi software. Results of one phase had a great effect on other phases. These steps lead to a conclusion of environmental impacts categories, such as climate change, acidification, and Ozone depletion, etc. The result calculated by GaBi displayed a huge amount of damages that the environment suffered from the production process. However, a scenario modelling was taken place to improve these environmental impacts. Particularly, all the electricity grid mix processes were replaced by electricity from hydro power. This renewable energy source played a big role of changing the result positively.