Life Cycle Assessment Reports — Includes: • "Paper or Plastic", Washington Post.corn, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp - dynicontent/graphic/2007/10/03/GR2007100301385.html?referrer=emaillink (June 25, 2008). • The ULS Report, "Review of Life Cycle Data Relating to Disposable, Compostable, Biodegradable, and Reusable Grocery Bags", March 2008. • Franklin Associates, LTD., "Resource and Environmental Profile Analysis of Polyethylene and. Unbleached Paper Grocery Sacks", June 1990. • Fund for Research into Industrial Development, Growth and Equity (FRIDGE), "Socio-Economic Impact of the Proposed Plastic Bag Regulations", excerpt related to the lifecycle analysis chapter of the report accessed from the City of San Francisco website at http://www.sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/asticlifecycleanalysis.pdfpdf • Boustead Consulting & Associates, "Life Cycle Assessment for Three Types of Grocery Bags — Recyclable Plastic; Compostable, Biodegradable Plastic; and Recycled, Recyclable Paper, June 2007. • AEA Technology Environment, Scottish Executive Report, "Proposed Plastic Bag Levy — Extended Impact Assessment Final Report, June 2005. - washingtonpost.com Page 2 01'3 MORE TW• lETS E EYE An occasional feature that digs deeps' inte rftl res you've been v,ondering atout Parer or Plastic? e hear the question almost every time we go grocery shopping. Some shoppers answer automatically: plastic — conyniced that they are making a better -choice for the environment. Others ask for paper, believing the very same thing. The reality is that both paper and plastic bags gobble up natural resources and cause significant pollution. When you weigh all the costs to the environment, you might just choose to reuse: Four out of five trocery bags CONSUMPTION Americans consume more than Worldwide, an estimated 4 billioft 19 billion paper bags each year. in this country are plastic. plastic bags end up as litter each The U.S, uses 100 billion plastic Some 14 million trees are cut year. Tied end to end, the bags down annually for paper bag bags annually, made from an could circle the Earth 63 times. production. estimated12 million barrels of oil. x 63 Paper, of course, comes Plastic is a by-product of oil PRODUCTION from trees: Trees are grown or It takes more than four times as refining. Plastic bags are made. found, then marked and felled. much energy to manufacture a from polyethylene, which comes paper bag as it does a plastic bag. from oil refineries as small resin 1. Logs are moved from the pellets. forest to a mill, where there is a Energy to produce bags: three-year wait for the logs to dry 1. A machine heats the pellet to before they can be used. Plastic 10111594 BTUs. about 340 degrees and pulls out 2. Logs are stripped of bark and Paper tt from it a long, thin tube of cooling plastic. chipped into one-inch squares. The chips are "cooked" with 2. A hot bar is dropped on the 0 tremendous heat and pressure. 7 in 10 Americans do not tube at intervals, melting a line. know That plastic is made 3. Then, they are "digested" with horn petroleum products.. 3. Each melted line becomes the limestone and sulfurous acid until primarily oil, according to a bottom of one bag and the top of the wood becomes pulp. recent nationwide online survey. another. 4. The pulp is washed, requiring 0 • I • • It 4. The se cti on s are cut out and a thousands of gallons of fresh hole for the bag's handles is water and bleach. then pressed stamped in each piece. into finished paper. 5. Cutting, printing, packaging 071J ,-- Et kl:h thorrnal unit and shipping to make paper bags require additional time, labor and energy. 0 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/10/03/GR2007100301385.. 06/24/2008 06''.4/2008 15:20 FAX 9136496494 FRANKLIN ASSOCIATES Q1002 unsouncE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROFILE ANALYSIS OF POLYETHYLENE AND UNBLEACHED PAPER GROCERY SACKS Final Report Prepared for iit COUNCIL PoR SOLID WASTE SOLUTIONS by FRANKLIN ASSOCIATES, LTD. June 1990 vv , i-teLyvy rn_a. 01.U,OV420'* rnruln.ulo Chapter 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BACKGROUND Recently, much attention has been directed at packaging by a variety of interest groups including: environmentalists, government officials, commercial and retail businesses, and legislators. This attention toward packaging has been the result of two issues. First, there is an ever-decreasing landfill capacity in this country, which is being aggravated by an inability to site new landfills. Second, packaging accounts for roughly one-third of the weight of the municipal solid waste that is being landfilled. certain packaging materials have come under particular scrutiny and have been singled out by punitive measures such as bans or taxes. Before decisions are made regarding individual packages or materials, a full evaluation should be made of all packaging materials and alternatives. Objective data regarding the energy requirements, environmental emissions, recyclability, incineration impacts, and landfill impacts of different packaging will.be crucial in determining solutions to our current and future environmental problems. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study was to determine the energy and environmental impacts of polyethylene and paper grocery sacks. In this study, the term impact refers to the quantities of fuel and raw materials consumed and emissions released to the environment. The comparative recyclability, incineration, and landfill impacts of these sacks were also addressed in this analysis. SCOPE The packages examined in this study were chosen due to their predominant visibility and potential for restrictive legislation. The following packages were examined: 06/24/2008 15:21 FAX 9136496494 FRANKLIN ASSOCIATES Z004 used throughout this study to mean the grocery sack itself and all secondary packaging such as overwrap and corrugated boxes. The two sacks examined in this study are the same size. However, through . surveys of major grocery chains, it was determined that more plastic sacks than paper sacks are used to hold the same amount of groceries. The practice of using more plastic to paper sacks is believed to hold true even after taking into account some stores' practices of using double (one sack inside the other) paper sacks. One reason for the use of more plastic sacks seems to be inexperience on the part of grocery clerks and consumers on how to pack them so that they may hold their designed capacity. Another reason for the use of more plastic sacks could also be a mistaken comparison of smaller plastic sacks, for instance, 1/7 barrel plastic to the standard 1/6 barrel paper sack. Since the ratio of polyethylene sacks to paper sacks used is crucial to the results of this study, considerable effort has been made to determine this number. Ratios ranging from 1.2:1 to 3:1 have been reported, but there is no industry-wide agreement on a representative ratio. Therefore, the results of this analysis are presented at ratios of 1.5:1 and 2:1 polyethylene to paper since most estimates fall within this range. These ratios were developed based on data collected from supermarket chains and other industry sources. For this analysis, an equivalent basis of 10,000 uses was utilized. With a 1.5:1 polyethylene to paper sack ratio this equals 15,000 polyethylene sacks and 10,000 paper sacks. With a 2:1 polyethylene to paper sack ratio, this equals 20,000 polyethylene sacks and 10,000 paper sacks. METHODOLOGY A cradle-to-grave approach was used to determine the energy and environmental impacts of the packages examined in this study. This methodology measures energy consumption and environmental emissions at each stage of a product's "life cycle," beginning at the point of raw materials extraction from the earth and proceeding through processing, manufacturing, use, and final disposal, recycle, or reuse. A more thorough description of the methodology and assumptions used in this study are presented in Chapter 2. Energy use was quantified in fuel or electric energy units and converted to British Thermal Units (ntu) for each of the many stages, or industrial processes, required to manufacture a grocery sack. Btu consumption was determined for six basic energy sources (natural gas, petroleum, coal, hydropower, nuclear, and wood) as well as the total for each sack. Since this analysis attempts to measure the total energy impacts associated with each sack, the fuel and electric energy 1-2 FRANKLIN ASSOCIA:lhS, Li D. Vb/Z4/2008 15:21 FAX 913b495494 FRANKLIN ASSOCIATES 41005 conversion factors to Btu include not only the energy content of the fuels, but also an adjustment which accounts for the energy used to obtain, transport, and process that fuel into a usable form. As with energy, the environmental wastes from each step or - process were determined. Government documents as well as federal regulations, technical literature, and confidential industry sources form the basis for these data. These wastes represent actual discharges into the environment after control devices. The environmental impacts can be classified into three broad . categories: - Solid wastes - Atmospheric emissions - Waterborne wastes. These categories include not only those readily identifiable wastes associated with a specific process, but also the pollutants associated with the fuels consumed in power generation or transportation. The solid waste category includes both industrial solid waste and postconsumer solid waste. Energy and environmental impacts were determined for various postconsumer recycling rates for both the polyethylene sack and the paper sack. In this analysis the recycled polyethylene or paper is assumed to replace virgin materials in producing new. products. Currently, recycled grocery sacks are being made into products which we assume are not further recycled. For this reason both the paper and polyethylene grocery sacks are considered to be recycled in an open-loop recycling system (further discussion can be found in Chapter 2). The impacts of incineration were also included in this analysis.