A simplified life cycle assessment of re-usable and single-use bulk transit packaging

A streamlined (simplified) life cycle assessment of a conventional wooden pallet and an all-weather, washable, re-usable and fully recyclable plastic bulk transit packaging system used to transport empty yoghurt pottles, has been conducted using surrogate/proxy data from the Environmental Priorities Strategy (EPS) 2000 Default Method. This paper accounts for the life cycle inventory for each material used in the two transit packaging systems and their associated fabrication processes. The life cycle assessment was simplified by ignoring common factors such as the common nylon strap of both packaging systems, the common in-house transportation, and the manufacture and maintenance of capital equipment. The system boundaries and assumptions made are also discussed. The functional unit adopted was the Environmental Load Units (ELU) of the EPS 2000 Default Method. The grand overall ELU for the wooden pallet and plastic packaging system are computed by considering the weight of the material, the volume of inventory and the distance travelled. The ELU of the wooden pallet was 18.455, while that for the plastic packaging was 4.574 at a 96.5% level of certainty. In the case of the wooden pallet, truck transport, the corrugated cardboard boxes and the LDPE liner and shrinkwrap impacted the environment most, while for the plastic packaging system truck transport and the LDPE liner were significant. The plastic packaging has a lower environmental impact than the wooden pallet for various reasons. It is lighter in weight, has more re-usable parts and can transport more yoghurt pottles per trip. It has a long service life and is virtually fully recyclable. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.