Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of alternative feedstocks for plastics production

The European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy includes actions aimed at investigating and better understanding the lifecycle impacts of using alternative feedstocks for plastics production. The Joint Research Centre has thus developed, upon request from DG GROW1, a Life Cycle Assesment (LCA)-based method (the "Plastics LCA" method) to consistently evaluate the potential environmental impacts of plastic products relying on different feedstocks and derived materials. The method was built upon and fully conforming to the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method, with the aim of enabling as much as possible consistent, reproducible, robust, transparent and verifiable LCA studies of plastic products at the EU level. The development was supported by a number of illustrative case studies, conducted to evaluate and demonstrate the applicability of the method, and to assess reliability of results. A participatory process was followed, involving interested stakeholders at different key steps. This report describes a selection of the originally developed case studies, which were revised and updated according to the final version of the Plastics LCA method, while taking into account relevant stakeholder comments. The main lessons learnt and obstacles encountered are also discussed, and recommendations for improvement are provided. Overall, the case studies are expected to facilitate the application of the procedural, methodological and modelling rules of the Plastics LCA method by companies and other interested users.