Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) as a Tool for Packaging Sustainability Case Study: Carrots

Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCI) is one phase within the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology used to determine the environmental impact of a product system. Life Cycle Inventory can be a decision making tool for government officials, industries or society to evaluate a product's environmental impact. This study used Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCI) to provide a simple methodology to compare the end-of-life results for the product systems of three shipping containers for baby carrots. The study compared the product packaging by including the raw material, manufacturing, filling, and distribution phases of the product systems. The three product systems consist of one corrugated display-ready corrugated container (DRC), one reduced corrugated DRC container, and one reusable plastic container (RPC). All three packaging systems are compared with two end-of-life scenarios in terms of landfill, incineration, and recycling. Overall, the results of this study show the significant difference in green house impact and total energy consumption between Reusable Plastic Containers and the two DRC containers.