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SZENT ISTVÁN EGYETEM 
Tájépítészeti és Tájökológiai Doktori Iskola   
Main findings PhD thesis 
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSEMENT OF 
PACKAGING GLASSES WITH LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT 
 
 
BOGÓNÉ TÓTH ZSUZSÁNNA 
Budapest, 2020  
Doctoral school:    Szent István University  
Doctoral School of Landscape 
Architecture and Landscape 
Ecology 
Research field:     agricultural engineering 
Head of Doctoral School:  László Bozó Professor, DSc, 
MHAS  
Szent István University  
Faculty of Horticultural 
Sciences Department of Soil and 
Water Management 
 
 
Supervisor:       Zoltán Lakner Professor, DSc 
      Szent István University  
Faculty of Food Science 
      Department of Food Economics  
 
...................................................   ........................................ 
Head of Doctoral School     Supervisor  
THE AIM OF THE WORK 
Environmental pollution and sustainability are not just a fashionable problem 
nowdays, but a global problem that needs solution. Climate change, 
increasing carbon-dioxide and methane emissions, extinction of species and 
depletion of raw materials are threatening our life. 
One of the main reason of pollution is the unreasonably large amounts of 
waste from packaging materials. The most significant in volume is the one-
way packaging, including most wine bottles. 
The solution is to collect and refill the bottles. We have to find the optimal 
solution between economy and environmental impact, and have to make 
calculations from the design level of the product through production and use, 
to waste, disposal, and in better case to recycling and reuse. 
One possible method and increasingly common tool for calculations is life 
cycle assessment. 
In my dissertation, I examine with life cycle assessment the environmental 
impacts of glass bottles, which is almost dominant in wine bottling, and how 
can we influence its scale in different cases of reuse and recycling. 
The aim of my research was to quantify the environmental significance of 
reuse and recycling with life cycle assessment. 
I was looking for answers to the following questions: 
 What are the environmental impacts of bottles with different contents of 
cullet? 
- How does it effect the environmental impacts the increasing the number of 
refilling and recovery rate? 
- What are those impact categories that are clearly affected by glass 
production and wine bottling? 
 
MATERIAL AND METHOD 
Life cycle assessment 
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a complex method wich examines and 
quantifies the potential or actual impacts of the entire life cycle of a product 
or service on the environment, from raw material extraction through 
processing and use, to waste, disposal those the potential and real 
environmental impacts, and quantify them.  
 Optimally, the product’s life does not end, it is reused or recycled. 
The life cycle assessment was conducted with te open source openLCA 1.10 
software using openLCA EF_secondary_201908 and ecoinvent 3.4. 
databases. 
The environmental impacts are primarily related to the emissions of human 
activities, and the impact categories are representing classes of 
environmental issues to which input and output data can be assigned. A 
common feature of impact categories is that more or less all contribute to 
global environmental problems. 
For each impact category, the authors of impact assessment methods have 
defined a reference unit. For example, the impact of 1 kg of carbon dioxide 
on global warming 1, such as the contribution of methane emissions to 
global warming, is given in kg of CO2 equivalent. 
Impact categories are examined by using impact assessment methods. There 
are a lot of these methods, I had chosen in my research the Environmental 
Footprint (Mid-point) method, and the software I used to examine the EF 
database, only supported  the use of this method.  
In the first half of the dissertation, I examined the environmental effects of 
five different glasses with life cycle assessment-.These bottles differ in their 
recycled glass (cullet) contents, and in their region of manufacture. 
In these analysisies, I calculated the environmental impacts of glass 
manufacturing processes in different impact categories. 
To calculate the combined environmental impacts of glass production and 
technological processes (here: glass collection, washing, filling, use, 
collecting, disposal of waste), I created a product system in the software that 
I combined different glass types with basic scenarios, thus examining 21 
scenarios for three selected glass types,with 0, 50, 80 and 90% recovery rate 
and 1, 5 and 6 refill numbers charges, 
The necessary so-called inventory dates from a hungarian market-leading 
winery that fills thousands of wine bottles a day. For their bottled wine they 
set a high deposit fee per bottle, thus achieving a collection rate of 80% so 
that their bottles are refilled five times. 
Accordingly, I selected 10 million bottles as the functional unit to calculate 
the results. The elements of the examined product system are shown in 
Figure 1. 
 
Figure 1. The examined product system 
 
From the 19 impact categories offered by the impact assessment method, I 
examined 10 impact categories after preliminary calculations. These were 
climate change, acidification, eutrophication of freshwaters, ecotoxicity, 
ozone depletion, land use, depletion of mineral and fossil resources, ionizing 
radiation, and water use. 
I separately examined and compared the scenarios modeling the present 
situation and the best and the worst case. 
I examined the proportion of the total environmental impact of the glass 
production process and the what is the rate between the process and 
technology. 
To compairing the degree of environmental impact, I normalized the 
calculated raw results. Normalization is an optional element of life cycle 
assessment. The point is to compare the raw data obtained during the impact 
assessment with a reference value (belonging to the impact analysis method). 
This could be, for example, the average annual environmental impact of a 
European citizen. Thus, we can express the obtained result in terms of 
habitant equivalent. I also used another optional element of life cycle 
assessment, weighting, to clarify the interpretation of the results. Weighting 
is deciding which environmental effects we consider important, comparing 
the results, and evaluating the results qualitatively. 
RESULTS 
In the results of my research, I established the following regarding to the 
hypotheses. 
H1: Those recycled bottles which are produced with more content of cullet 
has smaller environmental impact. 
True. This was confirmed in most of the selected categories. 
Comparing the cullet-free bottles without cullet content, with 57%, 62.5%, 
68.9% and 84.8% (last three German-made) bottles, I found that the 
environmental impact of German bottles was 26- 54% compared without 
cullet which is calculated from all average data in the world. In the GWP 
effect category, which is the most frequently studied effect category in the 
literature, the environmental impact of German bottles is 50% compared to 
bottles without cullet. Similar positive result can be seen for the ecotoxicity 
effect impact category, where the environmental impact is only less than 
30% compared to bottles without cullet. The rate of environmental impact in 
the case of glass with a cullet content of 57% confirms the usage of cullet as 
much as possible, but here, presumably due to the geographical and 
atmospheric conditions of the region of production, POCP and AP categories 
show almost the same environmental impact as without cullet. 
H2: Increasing the recovery rate by 10% significantly reduces the specific 
environmental impact. 
True. Compared to one-way bottles, a reduction in environmental impact of 
up to 80% can be achieved in some categories. For the three highlighted 
scenarios, which are the current situation, the best and worst case, I found 
that in the AP category, the environmental impact drops to 12% when the 
best case is compared to the worst case scenario. This study also showed 
positive changes in the other impact categories without exception, which 
ranged from 6% to 94% based on the former comparison.  
 
I examined separately the results of the 80% and 90% recovery rates for the 
5 charges. I found that by increasing the collection load by 10%, the rate of 
environmental impact shows a 1% decrease in the WU impact category. 
Significantly better results were detected in the other impact categories. In 
ADP mineral there was a 4% reduction of environmental impact and in other 
impact categories 19-22%. 
 
H3: Increasing the number of refill during re-use clearly has a positive effect 
on the environmental impact. 
True. Compared to one-way bottles, increasing the number of refill and the 
collection rate can reduce the environmental impact up to 75%. I examined 
the cases when the same number of refills was 5 and the collection rate was 
80% and 90%. The importance of this scenarios is because in the current 
situation, a bottle is filled 5 times and the collection rate is 80%. It is proved 
here again, depending on the impact categories there was a 4% and 22% 
improvement. The vast majority of cases were 20-22%. Improvements were 
observed in the following environmental impact categories: GWP, ETP, EP, 
AP, POCP, ADP (fossil), LU, and IR. In category of ADP (mineral) I could 
prove only 4% difference. 
By increasing the number of refill from 5 to 6, assuming a recovery rate of 
90%, a reduction in the environmental impact between 5% and 11% can be 
observed in the different impact categories. In most categories, this value 
was 11%. An exception is the WU impact category, where this refill number 
increase does not change the results. 
 
H4: There are environmental impact categories in which the environmental 
impact of glass production is not significant. 
Partly true. With regard to the examined effect categories, I obtained an 
evaluable raw result in all impact categories during the comparison of the 
glasses. These, as expected, have demonstrated that higher cullet content in 
all categories has a beneficial effect on reducing environmental impact. If we 
look only at the numerical values, there is an impact category where the 
amount emitted seems to be negligible. Therefore, in order to support the 
importance of each category of impacts, they should be examined with 
weights, because the effect of the substances released can cause damage to 
health even at low doses. 
Therefore, to further interpret the results, I normalized and weighted the raw 
environmental impact results. 
Analyzing the weighted results, it was seen that there are categories that are 
negligible, while some effect categories such as ecotoxicity did not receive a 
weighting factor. The EF (Mid-point) impact assessment method also does 
not have a weighting factor, such as the human toxicity effect categories. 
I examined the extent to which each impact category contributes to the 
overall environmental impact of my product system. 
I selected the categories with a contribution below 5%. It was my subjective 
choice, I declare it to prove this hypothesis. 
I calculated that the values of the POCP impact category are the same for all 
type of glasses (5%), the content of the glass did not affect the result. 
ADP mineral value is 4-5%, EP freshwater 2-5%, EP terrestial 3-4%, WU 2-
3% and EP marine 1-2%. 
I proved that the rate in environmental impacts of the ODP, IR and LU 
impact categories is below 1% for all glass types. 
In regard to the glasses I have examined, they play a negligible role in the 
environmental impact of glass production. 
 
H5: Impact categories can be identified in which the environmental impact 
of glass production is clearly significant. 
True. By comparing the normalized and weighted results, I investigated what 
these effect categories might be. Based on the results calculated here, I 
concluded that in the life cycle assessment, the most significant result 
categories were AP, ADP fossil and ADP mineral, GWP, LU, RI and POCP. 
My calculations have shown that the most significant impact category is 
GWP, which is 31-36% of the total environmental impact of glass 
production. This high rate is due to CO2 emissions from transport and glass 
manufacturing technology. 
The contribution of the ADP fossil impact category to the total 
environmental impact by 18-24% is also significant. This high value is due 
to the processes of energy production and transportation. 
Non-European glass has a higher RI (17-18%) than European products (7-
8%). Thus, the importance of this impact category can differ from region to 
region. This probably indicates the state of the glass production technology, 
whether it is up to date or not. 
Also for the AP impact category, the contribution is relatively significant 
between 9-12%, which can be attributed to the emissions from glass 
production. 
 
New results 
I consider it a new scientific result the following: 
1. This is the first Hungarian-language study based on manufacturer data in 
this field. 
2. I was the first to make a life cycle assessment for a wine bottle in 
Hungary. 
3. In my dissertation I prove quantitatively that the refilling of wine bottles 
several times and / or the increase of the collection rate has a positive effect 
on reducing the environmental impact. 
4. I have identified the impact categories where glass production and bottling 
have a significant environmental impact. 
CONCLUSIONS, SUGGESTIONS 
In my research, building different scenarios, I examined different glass 
types, filling numbers, and collection rates in terms of how and how much it 
changes the environmental impact calculated in different impact categories. 
 
Overall, I found that each of the examined factors - glass types, filling 
numbers, collection rate - has a smaller to a greater effect on the expected 
environmental impact in the impact category. 
Increasing the number of refilling of the bottles by even just one causes a 
significant improvement, especially in high-volume production. Of course, 
the physical and aesthetic condition of the glass must be examined aswell. 
While some literature reports up to ten refills - and even more on a 
theoretical level - when reusing a wine bottle, the experience shows that the 
approx a recycled glass bottle with a cullet content of 50-60% can be refilled 
five times without damage of quality and aesthetics. 
There is a similarly positive effect on the environmental impact values 
increasing the collection rate by 10%. 
Currently, the collection rate in Hungary is around 50%, so this was one of 
the collection values during the creating of the scenarios. In the case of the 
company, a collection rate of 80% has been achieved, which exemplifies the 
current situation (scenario S3). In order to achieve even better results,- as has 
already been the case in some Nordic countries and Germany-, I also 
expected 90% collection and reuse. As I expected, a significant reduction in 
pollutant emissions can also be achieved by increasing the collection rate, 
thereby also achieving a reduction in environmental impact. 
I found that among the processes studied in the product system, the 
production of glass represents the largest volume in the environmental 
impact in the impact categories GWP, AP, EP, ET, WU. 
The use of sodium hydroxide for washing and the use of low-concentration 
sulfuric acid for disinfection also does not have a serious impact on the 
environment, just as energy consumption is not decisive. However, it should 
be noted that wastewater treatment fell outside the boundaries of the system. 
The availability of data within the region also greatly influences the results 
obtained. 
During the analysis of the glass types, I found that the region of glass 
production, the technical development of glass production, has a decisive 
influence on the environmental impact. 
 
Overall, I have found that, since the glass bottle is expected to be the most 
accepted and most widely used packaging for wine in the long run, there is a 
need to encourage a reduction in one-way packaging and, at the same time, 
an increase in reuse and recovery rates. 
 
 
 
 
 
PUBLICATIONS 
BOGÓ-TÓTH, Zs., LAKNER, Z. (2013): System-based analysis of 
environmental effects of liquid food packaging Taylor & Francis (ISBN: 
978-1-138-00046-9). Green Design, Materials and Manufacturing Processes 
Edited by Telma Ferreira 2nd Sustainable Intelligent Manufacturing 26_29 
June 2013 Lisbon CRC Press 2013 Pages 257–259 Print ISBN: 978-1-138-
00046-9 
eBook ISBN: 978-1-315-87948-2 DOI: 10.1201 / b15002-49 
 
BOGÓ-TÓTH Zs, LAKNER Z (2014) Multicriterial optimization of liquid 
food packaging systems. Acta Alimentaria 43: 29–35. 
https://doi.org/10.1556/AAlim.43.2014.Suppl.5 
 
BOGÓ-TÓTH, Zs., LAKNER, Z. (2014): Strategic problems of agribusiness 
development and environmental burden in light of life cycle analysis in 
Hungary, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences Vol. 143 (2014) pp. 
1025-1030 
 
BOGÓNÉ TÓTH, Zs, SZILÁGYI, A: Environmental impact assessment of 
packaging bottles. Eco-Matrix 8 (2020) 22-30. 
ECO-MATRIX: ONLINE JOURNAL OF THE LCA CENTER 
ASSOCIATION, LCA Center Association, Miskolc, 2020, ISSN: 2061-
344X 
 


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