Life Cycle Assessment of Fishing and Aquaculture Rope Recycling
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3119095Utgivelsesdato
2023Metadata
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In this chapter, we assess the environmental footprint of the production of recycled plastic granulate made of waste ropes from the fishing/aquaculture industries. The end-of-life treatment of waste fishing and aquaculture gear is an important factor in solving the marine plastic crisis. The improvement of waste management on land is thought to be one of the key strategies for tackling marine plastic challenges. Moreover, in terms of the circular economy, recycling is viewed as a more desirable end-of-life treatment than incineration and landfilling. Meanwhile, it is important to understand the environmental impacts of recycling processes to avoid problem shifting. The publication of environmental impact data on the recycling of fishing/aquaculture gear can assist policy makers and waste managers, amongst other stakeholders, in making decisions about end-of-life treatments. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardised methodology for the assessment of the environmental impacts of a product across its full life cycle, from raw material acquisition through to end-of-life phases. In this chapter, we perform an LCA of fishing and aquaculture rope recycling. We begin with the acquisition of waste polypropylene/polyethylene (PP/PE) ropes from the fishing and aquaculture industries, move to the production of recycled granulate and end with delivery to the customer. We assess the environmental footprint of 1000 kg of PP/PE granulate across a range of impact categories, including global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), and eutrophication potential (EP). The core processes account for 40% of the total GWP emissions with the upstream and downstream processes accounting for 30% of the emissions each. A critical contributor to GWP emissions from PP/PE rope recycling comes from diesel production and consumption across the product life cycle. Finally, the global warming potential, acidification potential, and eutrophication potential of recycled PP/PE are significantly lower when compared to virgin PP and PE.