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The study is the first comprehensive life-cycle analysis to compare bio-based and fossil-based plastics. Researchers traced the environmental impacts of the production, use, and disposal of five bio-based and seven fossil-based polymers. Most previous studies of bio-based plastics have emphasized their carbon footprint, but the new study also encompasses their effects on ecosystem quality and human health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another recent study<\/a> found environmental tradeoffs involved in replacing conventional plastics with compostable plastics. (Both bio-based and compostable plastics have been promoted as more ecologically friendly versions of the ubiquitous material, but not all bio-based plastics are compostable, and not all compostable plastics are bio-based.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new study, similarly, reveals that bio-based plastics are not an environmental panacea. Instead, they pose a tradeoff between climate and biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The carbon footprint of bio-based plastics is a little over half that of fossil-based plastics, mainly because the plants from which bio-based plastics are made absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the ecosystem quality impacts of bio-based plastics are several times those of fossil-based plastics, mainly because natural ecosystems have to be converted to agricultural fields to grow those plants. The human health impacts of bio-based plastics are also higher, because of the fertilizers and water the crops demand.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The environmental impacts of bio-based plastics depend on what exactly they are made of, though here too there are tradeoffs. The ecosystem impacts of plastics made from food crops such as corn or sugarcane are higher than those of plastics made from agricultural or other waste. But making plastics from agricultural waste is more energy intensive and less efficient, eroding the climate benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the end-of-life impacts: ecosystem damage from improper disposal of plastic<\/a> depends on how long a particular polymer lasts in the environment \u2013 not whether it is made from petroleum or plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, even if all fossil-based plastics used in Europe were replaced with bio-based ones, continued increases in demand would swamp the climate benefits of the switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the European plastics industry needs to shrink its carbon footprint to the equivalent of 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050. A business-as-usual scenario would see its impact balloon to 250 million tonnes, the researchers calculated. Even substituting bio-based plastics for all fossil-based plastics would only manage to constrain the carbon footprint to 100 million tonnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only swapping bio-based for fossil-based plastics, while also reducing plastic packaging demand<\/a> by about 3% per year, would put the industry in striking distance of the IPCC recommendations. Happily, this scenario would dampen the ecosystem impacts of bio-based plastics as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur findings underscore the need to move beyond substitution alone,\u201d the researchers write. \u201cUltimately, reducing the demand for single-use packaging is indispensable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n