title: Packaging waste prevention activities: A life cycle assessment of the effects on a regional waste management system.
abstract: A life cycle assessment was carried out to evaluate the effects of two packaging waste prevention activities on the overall environmental performance of the integrated municipal waste management system of Lombardia region, Italy. The activities are the use of refined tap water instead of bottled water for household consumption and the substitution of liquid detergents packaged in single-use containers by those distributed 'loose' through self-dispensing systems and refillable containers. A 2020 baseline scenario without waste prevention is compared with different waste prevention scenarios, where the two activities are either separately or contemporaneously implemented, by assuming a complete substitution of the traditional product(s). The results show that, when the prevention activities are carried out effectively, a reduction in total waste generation ranging from 0.14% to 0.66% is achieved, corresponding to a 1-4% reduction of the affected packaging waste fractions (plastics and glass). However, the improvements in the overall environmental performance of the waste management system can be far higher, especially when bottled water is substituted. In this case, a nearly 0.5% reduction of the total waste involves improvements ranging mostly between 5 and 23%. Conversely, for the substitution of single-use packaged liquid detergents (0.14% reduction of the total waste), the achieved improvements do not exceed 3% for nearly all impact categories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy simone.nessi@polimi.it.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nessi
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rigamonti
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grosso
mesh_terms: D003902:Detergents; D060766:Drinking Water; D007558:Italy; D019064:Product Packaging; D059027:Recycling / Q000379:methods*; D062611:Solid Waste / Q000032:analysis*; D018505:Waste Management / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D003902:Detergents; D060766:Drinking Water; D062611:Solid Waste
keywords: Waste prevention; bottled water; container refill; life cycle assessment; loose detergent; packaging reduction; tap water; waste management system