Burn or Return? Evaluating Deposit Return Systems for Plastic Packaging Waste in Sweden : A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment

Abstract: Plastics have become an integral part of modern life and global use is expected to grow almost two- fold until 2040. 40% of European demand for plastic raw materials is driven by the packaging industry and being a cheap material, focus on waste management has historically been neglected. Sweden introduced a law on extended producer responsibility in 1994, due to which a national recycling system for plastic packaging was introduced, arranged by the producer owned organisation FTI. By 2017, official data stated that the national recycling rate reached 46%, surpassing the target of 30% recycling. However, this figure has been disputed by both governmental and industry reports stating that the true recycling rate could be as low as 14%. With stricter recycling targets arriving in the upcoming decade, framed by the EU circular economy package, new strategies for managing plastic packaging waste are needed.  Alongside the recycling system arranged by FTI, Sweden also has a national deposit return system for the collection of PET bottles. This system continuously generates higher recycling rates than the FTI system, and extending the deposit return system to include other types of plastic packaging could be a way of reaching future targets for plastic packaging recycling. This thesis aims to evaluate the environmental impact of an extended deposit return system in a comparative LCA, with the recycling system organised by FTI as a baseline scenario (S0). Two scenarios with an extended deposit return system have been developed; one based on the current system for PET bottles with national collection (S1), and one based on reuse practices on a local scale, with take-away packaging from restaurants and cafés (S2). The LCA focuses on three impact categories related to circular economy targets – global warming, terrestrial ecotoxicity and fossil resource scarcity. With little previous research on extended deposit return systems and reuse practices in a Swedish setting, this thesis is a first attempt to explore possible extended deposit return system configurations and their associated environmental impacts.  The results show that S2 generates the lowest environmental impact in the analysed impact categories, whereas S0 generates the highest environmental impact in the analysed impact categories. Production of virgin packaging and incineration of waste packaging are the most contributing processes toward global warming results. For terrestrial ecotoxicity, incineration of packaging along with break wear emissions from transports contributes most. For fossil resource scarcity, production of virgin plastic granulate is the most contributing process.  To reduce the environmental impact of plastic management in Sweden, the results highlight the importance of lowering demand for virgin plastic packaging production and minimising incineration of waste plastic packaging. This can be achieved by increasing reuse practices, increasing collection rates and facilitating greater recycling rates by improving packaging design. An additional conclusion is that access to regional and site-specific data needs to be better, to increase the reliability of studies of Swedish waste management systems.