Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Plastic Food Packaging Materials: A Mini-review

Abstract

Plastic is the most common material used for food packaging. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can help to study the environmental impacts of food packaging materials throughout their life cycle, thus enabling the identification of environmentally friendly packaging materials among the given alternatives. This study aimed to assess the life cycle of plastic materials through conducting a literature review. The methodology included the use of different electronic databases, namely Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, Web Science, and African Journal Online for the information search. The keyword search terms consisted of Life Cycle Assessment, LCA of plastics, plastic AND food packaging, plastics AND human health, plastics AND food, plastic AND environment etc. Only literature containing the relevant information and published in the English language was included in this review. Literature confirms that the life cycle of plastics has a significant negative impact on the environment and human health. The production of plastic packages consumes huge amounts of water and energy, with the emission of heat. The global recycling rate of traditional plastics is only 9% while other packaging materials like metal and paper have more than 70% recycling rates, indicating more environmental burden of traditional plastics. The projected trend shows that the primary plastic waste will gradually continue to be generated with less recycling. Thus, the use of alternative, easily recyclable packaging materials should be emphasised hand in hand with the innovation of biodegradable plastic packaging materials in order to overcome the negative impacts associated with current commonly used plastic food packaging materials. Also, enhancing recycling infrastructure and promoting better recycling practices can help divert plastic waste from landfills.