PMID- 31346938
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20200218
LR  - 20200309
IS  - 1614-7499 (Electronic)
IS  - 0944-1344 (Linking)
VI  - 26
IP  - 35
DP  - 2019 Dec
TI  - Looking beyond the banning of lightweight bags: analysing the role of plastic 
      (and fuel) impacts in waste collection at a Portuguese city.
PG  - 35629-35647
LID - 10.1007/s11356-019-05938-w [doi]
AB  - The purpose of this work is to assess the environmental impacts of the collection 
      of mixed municipal solid waste (MSW) in a selected neighbourhood of the 
      Portuguese city of Aveiro. To this purpose, the main elements necessary for the 
      collection process (carrier bags, dustbins, street containers and vehicles) were 
      analysed applying the life cycle assessment methodology, making use of locally 
      gathered data. The main impacts associated with this activity are mostly related 
      to the use of polyethylene plastic bags to carry the waste from the household to 
      the waste container, and to the fuel consumption of collection vehicle that picks 
      MSW from street containers and transports it to the treatment facility. The 
      impacts associated with the plastic bags were primarily due to their disposal in 
      a sanitary landfill after use and secondarily to the consumption of fossil raw 
      materials required for their production. Given the relative high impact of the 
      plastic bags, alternative scenarios were tested: using bags entirely produced 
      with recycled polyethylene and bags produced with bio-based plastics derived from 
      starch (TPS) and from wastewater (PHA). PHA bio-based bags were found to perform 
      slightly better than conventional high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags, but HDPE 
      bags with 100% recycled content remained as the environmentally best option. A 
      sensitivity analysis was performed to check the influence of bag size. Regarding 
      the fuel consumption by collection vehicles, a comparison was performed to check 
      how site-specific conditions can influence the impact of this activity, resulting 
      in remarkably higher consumptions when local data were used instead of reference 
      databases.
FAU - Fernandez-Brana, Alvaro
AU  - Fernandez-Brana A
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-0351-2664
AD  - Research Centre for Natural Resources, Environment and Society (CERNAS) & 
      Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra (IPC), 3045-601, Coimbra, Portugal. 
      alvaro.branha@esac.pt.
AD  - Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782, 
      Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. alvaro.branha@esac.pt.
FAU - Feijoo-Costa, Gumersindo
AU  - Feijoo-Costa G
AD  - Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782, 
      Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
FAU - Dias-Ferreira, Celia
AU  - Dias-Ferreira C
AD  - Research Centre for Natural Resources, Environment and Society (CERNAS) & 
      Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra (IPC), 3045-601, Coimbra, Portugal.
AD  - Universidade Aberta, 1269-001, Lisbon, Portugal.
LA  - eng
GR  - LIFE 15/ENV/PT/000609/LIFE Programme (EU)/
GR  - SFRH/BPD/100717/2014/Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia/
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20190725
PL  - Germany
TA  - Environ Sci Pollut Res Int
JT  - Environmental science and pollution research international
JID - 9441769
RN  - 0 (Plastics)
RN  - 0 (Solid Waste)
SB  - IM
MH  - Cities
MH  - Environment
MH  - *Plastics
MH  - Portugal
MH  - Recycling/methods
MH  - Refuse Disposal/*methods
MH  - Solid Waste
MH  - Waste Disposal Facilities
MH  - Waste Management/methods
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Bioplastic
OT  - Environmental performance
OT  - Fuel consumption
OT  - Life cycle assessment
OT  - Municipal waste collection
OT  - Polyhydroxyalkanoates
OT  - Recycled polyethylene
OT  - Thermoplastic starch
EDAT- 2019/07/28 06:00
MHDA- 2020/02/19 06:00
CRDT- 2019/07/27 06:00
PHST- 2018/12/17 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2019/07/11 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2019/07/28 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2020/02/19 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2019/07/27 06:00 [entrez]
AID - 10.1007/s11356-019-05938-w [pii]
AID - 10.1007/s11356-019-05938-w [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Dec;26(35):35629-35647. doi: 
      10.1007/s11356-019-05938-w. Epub 2019 Jul 25.