1. Dr. S. & S. S. Ghandhy Government
Engineering College,
Surat – 395001

2. Presented by:
Vaghela Chirag 110230113042
Jaju Rashi 120230113004
Metaliya Tejas 120230113022
Gaur Shreya 120230113061
Life Cycle Assessment
Of
Plastic Bags & Paper Bags
Guided by:
Dr. S.S.Singh
Mr. M. R. Vyas
Mr. D. B. Chaudhri

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Action Plan
 What is LCA?
 Objectives
 Literature Review
 Scenario of plastic bags in India
 Scenario of paper bags in India
 History of LCA
 LCA Methodology
 Expected Outcome
 References

4. INTRODUCTION
 The actions of man have not only caused immense pollution but also
degraded rich assets of environment.
 Resulted in some notable changes which in turn are affecting back
humans only.
 One of the major threats to environment is excessive use and improper
disposal of plastic bags in our daily life.
 Plastic bags take 500 – 1,000 years for degradation and contaminate
the environment during its creation and clearance.
 To tackle this problem, we can use the life cycle assessment approach
on plastic bags.
 Entire life cycle of product with respect to environmental aspects
along with its potential impacts on the surroundings is studied.
 LCA - an ultimate approach to reduce pollution by juxtaposing and
providing useful solutions.

5. ACTION PLAN

6. WHAT IS LCA?
 The "cradle-to-grave" impacts include the extraction of raw materials;
the processing, manufacturing, and fabrication of the product; its
distribution to the customer; utility; and the disposal or recovery of the
product after use.
WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH LCA?
1. Product or project development and improvement
2. Strategic planning
3. Public policy making
4. Marketing and eco-declarations

7. LCA involves compiling of an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a
product or system, the evaluation of the potential environmental impacts and
the interpretation of the results.
Inputs
• Chemicals
• Energy
• Ethylene
• Water
• Paper roll
Life cycle process
of product
• Raw material
processing
• Manufacturing
• Production
• Transportation
• Product life
• Use
• Disposal
Outputs
• Airborne
emission
• Recyclable
waste
• Land filled
waste
• Dumping

8.  Raw material acquisition: which includes material harvesting and
transportation to manufacturing process.
 Processing: which involves material processing and transportation to
sites.
 Manufacturing: which involves product manufacture, assembly,
packaging & transportation to final distribution.
 Product life: which includes normal emissions & energy during
normal product life & product use.
 Waste management/end of life: which includes recycling, landfills,
liquid waste, gas emission, etc.

9. OBJECTIVES
 To evaluate different carrier bags used in India.
 For assessment of different carrier bags used in India and
their comparison.
 To study the repercussions of different carrier bags on the
environment.
 For interpreting the results which helps in making a well-
versed decision.

10. LITERATURE REVIEW
TITLE: Life Cycle Assessment for Three Types of Grocery Bags -
Recyclable Plastic; Compostable, Biodegradable Plastic; and Recycled,
Recyclable Paper
AUTHOR: CChet Chaffee and Bernard R. Yaros
ABSTRACT:
The study show that single use plastic bags which made from
polyethylene have many advantages over both compostable plastic bags
made from EcoFlex and paper bags made with a minimum of 30%
recycled fiber. When compared to 30% recycled fiber paper bags,
polyethylene grocery bags use energy in terms of fuels for manufacturing,
less oil, and less potable water. In addition, polyethylene plastic grocery
bags emit fewer global warming gases, less acid rain emissions, and less
solid wastes.

11. TITLE: Paper or plastic? Sustainability is a multidimensional
problem
AUTHOR: Sam Lohse
ABSTRACT:
The author has talked about the environmental impacts of using paper
bags, plastic bags, reusable/recyclable plastic bags and paper bags, by
using LCA technique for comparison. Humans have become adept at
manufacturing plastics from petroleum with high efficiency, whereas
the paper making process requires extensive energy use and releases
pollutants that have an unpleasant smell. On the other
hand, manufacturing of cloth bags has a high thirst for water and
pesticides used can harm the human health. Sustainability metrics is
suggested by author to measure their environmental consequences. In
the conclusion, the author favours reusable or recyclable plastic bags
as the greenest option of all.

12. TITLE: Life cycle assessment of supermarket carrier bags
AUTHOR: Dr. Chris Edwards and Jonna Meyhoff Fry
ABSTRACT:
The environmental impact of carrier bags is conquered by
resource use and production. Transport, secondary packaging and
end-of-life processing generally have a slight influence on their
environmental performance. Recycling or composting generally
produces only a small reduction in global warming potential
and abiotic depletion.

13. TITLE: Comparison of Environmental Impact of Plastic,
Paper and Cloth Bags
AUTHOR: Kirsty Bell and Suzie Cave
ABSTRACT:
All bags have an impact. The best solution would be to use a
cotton bag several hundred times, probably using it
constantly for years. If you are not going to do that, a plastic
bag – reused as a bin liner – is the next best option, better than
paper. Avoid accepting a plastic bag unless you need one, though.
So we say that the Environmental impact for Cloth bags, Plastic
bags and paper bags is increasing respectively.

14. SCENARIO OF PLASTIC BAGS IN INDIA
 The use of plastic bags is gradually prospering in India.
 According to a survey by The Times Of India conducted in
megacities, 99% of vegetable and fruit vendors, and 95% of meat
and fish vendors contacted during the study, were using plastic
bags.
 Out of 834 respondents who were interrogated, 78% of the
consumers said they selected plastic bags.
 Even worse, 333 users said they use and throw plastic bags, only
75 said they try to reuse.
 This survey, hence, clearly shows that the use of plastic bags in
the country is definitely on a large scale.
 However, owing to the harmful effects of plastic bags, many
states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, U.P., including Delhi, are posing
bans on the manufacture as well as usage of such bags by people.

15. SCENARIO OF PAPER BAGS IN INDIA
 Paper bags emerged as a 100% recyclable and reusable option over
plastic bags.
 Banning plastic bags opened new opportunities for paper bags and
hence making it more acceptable and famous among consumers.
 Now a days, a majority of malls and supermarkets prefer to give paper
bags to their customers.
 These bags are easy to carry and handle.
 A noticeable benefit of a paper bag is that it contains 40% post –
consumer recycled material.
 Moreover, when compared with plastic bags, paper bags decomposes
much more faster and easily and thus possess less environmental
impacts.
 However, every coin has two faces, and therefore on some basis paper
bags can be seen as a problem too.

16. HISTORY OF LCA
 During the 1970s and ’80s, many approaches to reducing environmental
harm included regulatory control of point-source waste releases.
 These approaches were based on a single stage of a product’s life, such as
production, or a single issue, such as wastewater, and thus they were not
particularly effective in achieving net environmental benefits.
 What they did achieve was a change in the way people thought about
business and environmental management.
 In the late 1980s, life-cycle assessment emerged as a tool to better understand
the risks, opportunities and trade-offs of product systems as well as the
nature of environmental impacts.
 In 1990, the term “life cycle assessment” (LCA) was coined.

17.  Beginning in 1993, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
tasked a small group for making a recommendation regarding the need to
standardize LCA.
 The group’s recommendation was to proceed with standardization, and by
1997 the ISO 14040 standard for Life cycle assessment – Principles and
framework was complete.
 There were more additions to the standards over the years and LCA use
continues to expand and is now being heavily integrated into green building
schemes around the world.
 LCA is currently used to know about the life cycle of a product.
 This process is quiet complex and has its own problems like complexity.
However, now the work is going on development of a software so that the
complexity can be eliminated.
 Also the steps are being taken to use LCA for every product

18. LCA METHODOLOGY
 Numbers of methods are used today for LCA, some according to
international standards while others are original to the
application.
 An approach that has emerged parallel to LCA is Well-to-Wheels
(WTW) study.
 They are similar with the exception that WTW studies are
specific to transport applications whereas LCA studies can be
applied to any product system.
 LCA studies tend to examine a wider range of impact categories,
while WTW studies have better access to primary data.

19. LCA methodology consists of four main phases
First phase: Goal and scope definition
Second phase: Inventory analysis
Third phase: Impact assessment
Fourth phase: Interpretation

20. 1. Goal and scope definition
Clearly defining goal and scope of an LCA is of crucial
importance in order not to provide confusing results and
misleading interpretations.
The purpose of LCA is stated, product is analysed and system
boundary is determined.
 Functional Unit
 Product system
 System Boundary
 Data Quality

21. Functional Unit
 The performance distinctiveness of the different processes of
LCA can be examined by defining a unit, which scales the flows
to a familiar context.
 The functional unit can be seen as the pith of any LCA and
allows an unbiased comparison of the results.
 The functional unit for our project is defined as mass (kg) and
number of plastic bags and paper bags used in a month by a
consumer.
 In defining the scope of the LCA, ISO requires a clear statement
of the product systems that will be examined.
 The two product systems that will be studied are the plastic bags
and paper bags.
Product System

22. System Boundary
 The system boundary for LCA links the technological system
and nature.
 Ideally, all the inputs and outputs which are fundamental to the
function of a product should be followed upstream and
downstream to flows of energy or matter; however the
compilation of such a broad data set requires vast resources.
 The system boundaries are made to define the exterior interfaces
of the product system.
 Hence, the prime motive for determining the system boundary
must be to include in the system the activities relevant to the
purpose of the study and is related to the goal definition.

23. Defining the system boundary at an early stage prevents over
allocation of resources to the areas that have an insignificant impact
on the final results.

24. Data Quality
 Data quality is one prime factor on which the reliability of
study depends.
 According to the ISO, data should have following parameters:
1. Representativeness
2. Accuracy
3. Reproducibility
4. Age desired
5. Geographical bearing
6. Technology
7. Completeness
8. Uniformity

25. 2. Life Cycle Inventory
 The compilation of the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is an enormous
task.
 It requires very detailed enumeration of total energy and material
flows for each part of the system to be examined and a thorough
understanding of the critical parameters affecting each process.
 Process flow diagrams are used to outline the relationships between
unit processes and flows across the system boundaries.
 Each unit process must be qualitatively described to ensure a
thorough understanding, and to avoid any overlap.
1. Data Collection
2. Data Validation
3. Allocation

26. 3. Life Cycle Impact Assessment
The main objective of LCA is to determine the outputs to the
environment by calculating the material and energy balance.
Outputs with similar environmental impacts can be grouped
and classified to group their environmental impact.
This classification quantifies the potential environmental
impact of the product system and simplifies the result to a single
parameter, such that global warming, smog creation etc.
The group classifications are referred to as Impact Categories,
and the standard ISO sets out the guidelines for Life Cycle
Impact Assessment (LCIA).
1. Classification
2. Selection of impact categories

27. 4. Interpretation
 This is the final phase of LCA, which makes the study through
the evaluation of data collected and calculated; it provides
feedback for changes to the other phases of LCA.
 Three elements must be satisfied in interpretation phase:
1. Identification of significant issues based on the results of the
LCI and LCIA.
2. Evaluation which does completeness and consistency checks.
3. Conclusions, recommendations and reporting.

28. EXPECTED OUTCOME
 The amount of pollution generating due to the plastic and paper bags during
its life cycle-extraction to disposal would be calculated to give the energy
outputs.
 There are chances that plastic bags may cause more pollution than paper bags
on the basis of energy required and waste generated during its life cycle.
 However, there can be also an opportunity where pager bags can become
more polluting due to problems during extraction or other processes.
 This outcome is predicted based on the research done so far and by
previously collected data and studying literature and patents of LCA of
plastic bags and paper bags.

29. REFERENCES
 (https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/life-cycle-assessment-three-types-grocery-bags-
recyclable-plastic-compostable-biode)
 (http://www.letstalkplastics.com/facts/plastic-bags-versus-paper-bags)
 (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho07
11buan-e-e.pdf)
 (http://www.europeanplasticfilms.eu/docs/Jamesandgrant1.pdf)
 (http://www.truereusablebags.com/pdf/lca_plastic_bags.pdf)
 (http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/publications/2011/environment/3
611.pdf)
 (http://www.smithbateson.co.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/Carrier_Bag_LCA_Research_Re
view_for_Smith_Bateson.pdf)
 (http://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/20563/Sevitz_Environmental(2003).pdf?sequ
ence=1)
 (http://www.truereusablebags.com/pdf/lca_plastic_bags.pdf)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessment
 ISO14040 - 43