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    South Asia (Sri Lanka)
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    14170
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    English

Life Cycle Assessment of Selected Single-Use Plastic Products towards Evidence-Based Policy Recommendations in Sri Lanka

Authors
Sivappirakasam KAMALAKKANNAN, Amila ABEYNAYAKA, Asela K. KULATUNGA, Rajeev Kumar SINGH, Miwa TATSUNO, Premakumara Jagath DICKELLA GAMARALALAGE
Copyrights
Open Access (Creative Common Attribute 3.0 License)
Publication Date

The global demand for plastic is expected to double in the next 20 years. The increasing demand for Single-Use Plastic Products (SUPPs) has become one of the main environmental problems in many developing countries, including Sri Lanka, through direct and indirect means, in the way of excessive consumption and the pollution of the environment through waste generation. In this way, there is a pressing need to accelerate the sustainability evaluation, comparison, impact mitigation and policy recommendation of SUPPs to address the environmental impacts and sustainable development. Therefore, this study aims to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of SUPPs for policy decision-making in Sri Lanka using life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques. Accordingly, the most popular and widely used single-use plastic products, which are under consideration for regulation in Sri Lanka, and their possible alternatives, are considered for this LCA study. The outcomes of the study reveal that the net Global Warming impact of SUPPs that have recycling practices at the end of life shows better performance compared to incineration and landfill. In addition, the polylactic acid- (PLA)-based products also show a significant impact on mid- and end-point Global Warming impact categories. Remarkably, the midpoint analysis of PLA-based products and their alternatives emphasized that PLA production was the most impactful for most of the midpoint impact categories due to PLA resin production, which contributes significantly to all impact categories. The study reveals that conducting LCA will facilitate scientific decision-making for policy interventions related to SUPPs and their processes. Notably, the study shows that, at present, the capability of conducting LCA studies to evaluate the sustainability performance of SUPPs in Sri Lanka is limited due to the lack of life cycle inventory (LCI) data availability on SUPPs and relevant waste management practices in Sri Lanka.

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