Environmental assessment of a sugar cane bagasse food tray produced by Roots Biopack: results of a shortcut–life cycle assessment

In this study, an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed, in which a sugar canebagasse food tray (produced by Roots Biopack) is compared to food trays made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polylactide (PLA) and moulded pulp. This LCA study has been conducted both for the system boundary "cradle-to-factory gate" and "cradle-to-grave." As default case, electricity from wind energy is assumed for the bagasse tray factory in China. The cradle-to-factory gate results show that the bagasse tray has lowest impacts for non-renewable energy use (NREU) global warming, abiotic depletion and acidification. The PET tray has highest environmental impacts for NREU, global warming and abiotic depletion. Compared to PLA, the bagasse tray has lower impacts for NREU, abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming and land use, but higher impacts for renewable energy use (REU) and photochemical oxidant formation. If incineration with energy recovery is applied in the waste stage, the environmental impacts decrease, except for global warming. A contribution analysis of the full life cycle of the bagasse tray (cradle-to-grave) shows that waste management and the production of the sugar cane bagasse contribute most to the total environmental impacts. All in all, it can be concluded that the bagasse tray has good environmental performance.