This technical report is one volume in a wider life cycle assessment of packaging for beer and carbonated soft drinks filled and sold in Denmark. It focuses on disposable PET bottles. Its functional unit is the packaging needed for 1,000 litres of beverage, including distribution from the producer to consumers.
The system includes PET resin, preforms and bottles, secondary packaging, filling, beverage distribution, cooling in consumers’ refrigerators, and waste management and recycling. The model assumes that 90% of used bottles are collected for material recycling. The report uses the EDIP impact assessment method and presents results for categories including global warming, acidification, photochemical ozone formation, terrestrial ecotoxicity and human toxicity in soil. Work environment, littering, packaging migration, noise, visual effects and accident-related bodily harm are outside its scope.
The authors test assumptions about bottle weight, PET-recycling allocation, beverage transport and electricity supply. A 20% increase in bottle weight has limited influence, as do distribution and electricity assumptions for this disposable-bottle system. Recycling allocation is more consequential: the model assumes recycled PET replaces both virgin PET and recycled material from other products, making this choice relevant to results. The report also identifies gaps in data on material scrap from preform and bottle production and PET recycling, and on possible water emissions from washing and filling. These limits should be kept in mind when interpreting or applying the 1998 results elsewhere.
The dominance analysis identifies terrestrial chronic ecotoxicity, human toxicity in soil, photochemical ozone formation, global warming and acidification among the report’s most important impact categories. For the 50 cl bottle system, PET-resin production contributes 54% of net global-warming impact and 156% of net photochemical ozone-formation impact; the latter is partly offset by avoided PET production. The report cautions that toxicity and ecotoxicity results are especially uncertain because toxic-emission data are incomplete and characterisation factors carry substantial uncertainty. These results reflect the report’s 1998 model for Danish packaging, recycling, transport and energy.
