Preview

Life Cycle Assessment of Reusable and Single use Plastic Bags in California

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
10303 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Life Cycle Assessment of Reusable and Single use Plastic Bags in California
California State University, Chico
Institute for Sustainable Development

Life Cycle Assessment of
Reusable and Single-use Plastic
Bags in California

January 2011

Produced under contract by:

California State University
Chico Research Foundation

Author:

Joseph Greene, Ph.D.
Sustainable Manufacturing Program
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0789
Funding provided by

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................... 2
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... 3
List of Tables................................................................................................................................. 3
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 3
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 7
Project Management ............................................................................................................... 7
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) ....................................................................................................... 7
ISO Standards on LCA............................................................................................................ 8
Literature Review of LCA on Plastic Bags .............................................................................. 9
U.S. LCA of Single-use Plastic Bags



References: <www.bpiworld.org/Files/Article/ArttJInBM.pdf> (August 2005). 2 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=37456 (August 2008) 3 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=38498 (August 2008) BaBi Software Product Sustainability, http://www.gabi-software.com/index.php?id=85&L=6&redirect=1 (August 2008) 6 SimaPro LCA Software, http://www.pre.nl/simapro/ (August 2010) of Grocery Bags- Recyclable Plastic; Compostable Plastic , and – Recycled, Recyclable Paper -2007, http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc.asp?CID=1106&DID=7212 (July 2010) Unbleached Paper Grocery Sacks." CSWS (800-243-5790), Washington, DC, June 1990. (July 2010) 10 agement_for_Ontario_Sept01.pdf (December 2010) 11 Ecobilan, February 2004. www.ademe.fr/htdocs/actualite/rapport_carrefour_post_revue_critique_v4.pdf (July 2010) Report, American Chemistry Council, http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_pfpg.asp?CID=1439&DID=5336 (July 2010) Consumer Plastic Recyclers, American Chemistry Council http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_content.asp?CID=1593&DID=10383 (August 2010) Plastic Recyclers, American Chemistry Council http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_content.asp?CID=1593&DID=10776 (August 2010) Consumer Plastic Recyclers, American Chemistry Council http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_content.asp?CID=1593&DID=10383 (August 2010) 17 http://earth911.com/recycling/automotive/car-batteries/ (August 2010) http://www.green.ca.gov/EPP/building/PlasticBags.htm (August 2010) Gerba, C., Williams, D., and Sinclair, R.,” Assessment of the Potential for Cross Contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags,” Loma Linda University School of Public Health, http://www.docuticker.com/?p=37322 (July 2010)

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Food Safety Bulletin

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 6 Americans become sick or hospitalized. About 3,000 Americans die yearly of foodborne diseases. Our country governs agencies and is notorious for slapping on strict guidelines for the food industry. Factories go through vigorous inspections and tests periodically to ensure that they operate a safe environment. Even with these strict guidelines in place, foodborne illnesses still pass through the forceful inspections and expectations.…

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Micro Lab Project

    • 747 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It is very important to know not only what types of bacteria are in a sample but also how many of them are present. After a 2010 outbreak, founder Jimmy John Liautaud switched the sandwich chain to clover sprouts after Salmonella illnesses were associated with alfalfa sprouts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, unwashed or lightly rinsed vegetables can harbor pathogenic bacteria and have been implicated in numerous food borne infections. Food manufacturers are required by the FDA to monitor the number and type of bacteria in their products. Very few of the things we eat or drink are bacteria free. They merely have greatly reduced numbers of “harmless” bacteria. It is often necessary to determine how many live bacteria are actually in a sample, especially when measuring growth rates or determining disinfectant effectiveness. This involves MacConkey agar which is a selective and differential…

    • 747 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Celebrated author and TV personality Julia Child once joked: “Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?” Kitchen practices in relation to food health and safety, in truth, have been evolving. Microbial activities, including bacterial benefits and detriments, have been undergoing a huge amount of demystification. A number of practices and measures believed to be safe - even healthy - in the past have been proved otherwise. A few of these have been compiled by food microbiologist and Food Safety Information Council vice president Cathy Moir:…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Often times, there are debates surrounding controversial environmental issues, such as global warming, deforestation and nuclear power. But then, there is little or no public debate on the impact of plastic bags on the environment. Plastic bags kill tens of thousands of animals every year. In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing tens of thousands of birds, whales, seals and turtles every year as they often mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish (planetark, 2015). Various experts estimate that up to a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year from plastic debris including bags (One Green Planet, 2015). It is estimated that between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year ( One Green Planet, 2015). This means that plastic bags is serious environmental issue. Given this, we as sustainability leaders should start to think of a way to trigger some public debate on this issue. Sustainability is about…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Effects of Gmos

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages

    2. Harry A., Kuiper and Davies Howard V. “The Safe Foods Risk Analysis Framework” Food Control 21. SAFE FOODS – Towards a new risk analysis framework for food safety (n.d.): 1662-1676. ScienceDirect. Web. July 27 2013.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Maple Leaf Analysis

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Friscolanti, Michael. 2008. How safe is your food? Maclean 's. 2 008, pp. 33 -35.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Environics Research Group Limited. 1999. Safe food handling study:A report for Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Retrieved December 2, 2004 from: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/publications/1998environics/study_texte.shtml.…

    • 51670 Words
    • 207 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Important to Healthy People: Foodborne illness is a preventable and underreported public health problem. It presents a major challenge to both general and at-risk populations. Each year, millions of illnesses in the United States can be attributed to contaminated foods.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Katherine Mangu-Ward’s article, “Plastic Bags are Good for You” she argues that plastic bags are better than paper bags because they’re cheaper for stores to distribute, they can hold items that are twice its own weight, and they can be used for other household necessities. Mangu-Ward makes reasonable points and provides a lot of information in her article, but she does not have reliable sources that supports her claims. Also she does not cite the sources she is getting her information from. The organization of her article is not successful, and the language she uses throughout the article is not effective.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Woteki, C., & Kineman, B. (2003). Challenges and approaches to reducing foodborne illness. Annual Review of Nutrition, 23(1), pg. 315-344. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.devry.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=398f2d6d-e6c2-4faf-ace7-3245f64a80cb@sessionmgr11&vid=20&hid=19…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cross contamination is critical matter and does go unnoticed. It’s not something many think about when out eating out, or preparing there own food at home. The remainder of this essay will include what is cross contamination and its symptoms, what prevention methods should be taken along with examples of food being contaminated.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Food Inc Documentary

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There are over 250 different types of foodborne diseases. Some come contaminated from the slaughter house, while some are contaminated through the preparation process. In order to reduce the number of illnesses caused from preparations, the FDA and USDA need to work together to create better programs about how to properly prepare…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    FSMA Legislation

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The FSMA legislation targets the issue of food safety for the public and how to better prevent foodborne illnesses, which are considered infectious topic of public health since these diseases are mostly caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites that may be foodborne. These diseases place significant burden on the US population, as about 48 million Americans become sick annually while 128000 people are hospitalized and 3000 die from foodborne illnesses, affecting many communities nationally and not any specific group of people (CDC 2016). The immune-compromised individuals have higher risk of getting these infections, such as children, elders, immune-compromised people and so on. The foodborne organisms cause illnesses that may lead to long-term…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first pertinent point to make on behalf of the argument that reusable bags should…

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    on the biodegradability of SM plastic bags. The materials needed are: 6, 1-litre glass jars; 6,…

    • 3092 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays