Life cycle assessment/carbon footprint of the services of the “dual systems” in the field of packaging recycling

In order to be able to map the environmental impacts and in particular the climate impacts of the services provided by the dual systems, a life cycle assessment is being drawn up for the dual systems. This life cycle assessment is to be used primarily for public relations work.

In order to obtain the most meaningful results possible, the life cycle assessment should be based on material flow data from all dual systems, or at least those that cover a high market share. These are in particular the data on the volume flows of collected, transported, sorted and processed packaging in the areas of LVP, PPK and glass. The data should be available as far as possible for the individual fractions or specifications of the packaging. Data on transport costs or at least transport distances, the sorting, processing and recycling facilities supplied and the final recycling products are also required as input into the balance models.

For this purpose, data from the dual systems are processed and aggregated so that they can be published without objection under antitrust law. If data is not available from the client, it is researched. On the basis of these data sets, a life cycle assessment is carried out in accordance with ISO standards 14040 and 14044. Uncertainty analyses are covered by sensitivity considerations and, within the framework of future scenarios, up to three optimisation options, which do not influence each other, for packaging recycling are tested for their effects on the LCA results.