Laying the foundation for the development of a standardised plastic footprint measurement tool
Imprint: Gland, Switzerland : IUCN, 2019
Author(s): Boucher, Julien. Dubois, Carole. Kounina, Anna. Puydarrieux, Philippe.
Organization(s): IUCN, Global Marine and Polar Programme

https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2019-027-En.pdf

Table of Contents

Executive summary

Current LCAs (Life Cycle Assessment) do not account for plastic as a pollutant. LCAs assume 100% collection of waste streams go to landfill, incineration or recycling.

Key foundings

1. Existing methodologies focus on assessment of plastic usage, waste or recycling
   rates, with little focus on circularity. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and circularity should be used synergistically to identify the best scenarios in terms of reducing environmental impacts while aiming to maximise circularity. Furthermore, stakeholders should be encouraged to use metrics based on leakage/inventory rather than using only recycling rates.
2. While several projects are aiming to develop an inventory approach to assess leakage for both macroplastics and microplastics, they are not yet available for use. Performing a generic plastic footprint based on such methodologies seems to be achievable in the short term, but significant challenges must be overcome to develop a more specific methodology that could support eco-design strategies.
3. There is an acute lack of data to allow for impact assessment and to embed plastic impacts within LCA frameworks. Plastic footprints currently in development propose to include fate in their calculations to account for different residence times or biodegradability rates for different plastics.

The move towards a single indicator, such as a monetary valuation metric, could help weigh the cost of inaction on plastic waste and leakage with other potential actions. Such an approach would not only provide monetary information on the impacts caused by plastic leakage but also on the return on investment of mitigation and
remediation measures.

Based on the key findings of this report, IUCN is working in collaboration with UN Environment and the scientific community to develop a best-in-class plastic hotspot methodology that can provide key stakeholders with data and analysis needed to inform their decision-making on reducing plastic leakage.

1. Introduction

• Plastics enter the ocean and soils from two main pathways: the visible macro-plastics resulting from mismanagement of waste disposal, and the mostly invisible microplastics released from various sources.
• Practitioners convey a strong signal on the existence of data gaps: the lack of appropriate methodology and supporting data to assess plastic leakage and support decisions for eco-design or plastic stewardship.

2. Plastic footprint methodologies

• Marques et al. (2017) use the term footprint to refer to “metrics that capture the direct effects of an activity as well as the indirect effects that are transferred along a supply chain”.
• A national plastic footprint consists of the sum of domestic plastic pollution that serves domestic consumption and foreign plastic pollution that serves consumption in that particular country.
• A classification scheme of the whole footprint family by Fang et al. (2016)

Resource-based footprints measure the flow of inputs to human activities.
Emission-based footprints focus on the flow of outputs from human activities.

• For example, carbon footprints account for the environmental impacts of various emissions (CO2, methane, N2O, CFC, etc.) expressed in CO2 equivalent.
• There are three dimensions when quantifying the plastic footprint:
  1. The quantity of plastic used in a system (often referred to as the “source”, expressed in kg/year).
  2. The quantity of plastic emitted into the environment during production, transport, use or end-of-life of a plastic product (often referred to as plastic leakage, expressed in unit of mass, of plastic leakage). Including the plastic itself and associated toxicants.
  3. The impact, directly or indirectly generated by the pollutants emitted( or the leaked plastic) on human health or the environment.