Sustainability Assessment of a Single-Use Plastics Ban

Timo Herberz, Claire Y. Barlow and Matthias Finkbeiner
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Timo Herberz: Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
Claire Y. Barlow: Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
Matthias Finkbeiner: Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: Governments around the world are introducing single-use plastics bans to alleviate plastic marine pollution. This paper investigates whether banning single-use plastic items is an appropriate strategy to protect the environment. Product life cycle assessment was conducted for single-use plastic and single-use non-plastic alternatives. The life cycle impacts of the two product categories were compared and scaled according to EU consumption of 2016. The results show that a single-use plastics ban would decrease plastic marine pollution in the EU by 5.5% which equates to a 0.06% decrease globally. However, such a ban would increase emissions contributing to marine aquatic toxicity in the EU by 1.4%. This paper concludes that single-use items are harmful to the environment regardless of their material. Therefore, banning or imposing a premium price on single-use items in general and not only single-use plastic items is a more effective method of reducing consumption and thereby pollution. The plastics ban only leads to a small reduction of global plastic marine pollution and thus provides only a partial solution to the problem it intends to solve.

Keywords: single-use plastics; plastics ban; plastic marine pollution; LCA; plastics policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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