1,720,964 research outputs found
Ranked: the environmental impact of five different soft drink containers
No full textPeople are increasingly aware of the harm plastic waste causes to wildlife, and many would avoid buying single-use plastics if they could help it. But are the alternatives to plastic much better
Life cycle assessment of drinks packaging: are there environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastics?
No full textGlobal plastic production has been increasing annually sinceWorld War II and is currently at least 380 million tonnes. Plastic drinks packaging is ubiquitous; over 13 billion plastic bottles are used per year in the United Kingdom alone. Global concern about pollution from plastics in the seas and the environmental costs of plastics manufacture is rising. This study aimed to: i) review the costs, benefits, advantages and disadvantages of plastics as packaging materials and ii) use life cycle assessment to determine if there is less environmentally impactful beverage packaging than plastic bottles. As different beverages have different packaging needs, three categories were used: commonly used containers for milk, fruit juice and pressurised ‘fizzy’ drinks. The packaging types included in the assessment were glass bottles, aluminium cans, milk cartons, Tetra Pak, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and high-density polythene (HDPE) bottles. The ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006 standards for life cycle assessment formed the basis of the methodology. The open source software openLCA was used to conduct the life cycle assessments and data was assembled from free LCA databases such as the European reference Life Cycle Database of the Joint Research Center (ELCD), existing life cycle assessments, scientific reports and peer reviewed literature. The functional unit was set at a container that held one litre of fluid. The results found that in each category there was a less impactful beverage packaging than plastic bottles. In the Pressurised Beverage Category, it was found that 100% recycled aluminium cans would be the least impactful option, in the Fruit Juice Beverage Category it was found that Tetra Pak would be the least impactful option and in the Milk Beverage Category it was found milk cartons would be the least impactful optio
Climate complacency: study finds even the most informed people would rather take the easy option
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Development of culturally, economically, environmentally and socially acceptable personal carbon budgets (4D-PCB)
No full textClimate change is a globally recognised crisis. Climate change is an emergency of such severity that efforts to reduce carbon emissions must come from all levels, government, industry, and individuals must all seek to reduce their emissions to combat climate change.In the United Kingdom households are the largest contributors to carbon emissions, however current UK policies are ‘top down’ targeting businesses and industry but putting no limit on individual carbon consumption. Behaviour change is required in the public to reduce their carbon emissions. Several Personal Carbon Budget (PCBs) policy interventions have been proposed to reduce personal carbon emissions. This thesis compared and analysed three main existing proposed models through a PESTLE framework alongside a newly proposed model in this thesis, Personal Carbon Allowance. The new model PCA was found to be the most appropriate model to reduce carbon emissions and ensure all individuals could meet their distinct needs. The similar Personal Carbon Trading model, due to its trading aspect is a regressive model, where those on higher incomes have an advantage. Carbon taxation is a regressive tax and both carbon taxation and carbon labelling have no ‘cap’ on emissions so cannot guarantee the required levels of carbon reduction.A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making conjoint analysis study was undertaken to identify public preferences on carbon reduction behaviour across demographics and attitudes. Regardless of demographics or degree of ‘green’ attitude the public showed considerable preferences for ‘easier’ options that had lower potential to reduce emissions, than more burdensome changes such as changing their diet or personal travel which have higher potential to reduce emissions. Without an intervention the public seem unlikely to change their behaviour to the degree required to reduce their personal carbon emissions significantly.A mixed methods carbon reduction behaviour diary study was undertaken to identify the motivations, barriers and challenges people encountered when attempting to reduce their carbon emissions. This study was based on the findings of the PAPRIKA study and using the same categories of behaviour. A new model was developed the CABDI model (CArbon Behaviour DIary model) to facilitate this study. Findings from this study showed the key barriers and challenges were convenience, habit, and consumerism rather than aspects outside of people’s control such as infrastructure. Education and awareness interventions were shown to only have short term effects on participant behaviour. Participants were concerned and anxious about climate change but showed minimal changes in behaviour across the period. However, participants reported a decrease in their carbon footprints from before and after the diary period, demonstrating that a self-monitoring intervention may have influence on carbon reduction behaviour. As this thesis shows the public are unwilling to change the behaviours that would make the most significant emission reductions with a value-action gap between their stated green attitudes and behaviour. To change public behaviour a ‘bottom up’ policy may be required that enforces changes in behaviour. The only policy intervention identified that is socially just, does not have economic impacts on people on lower incomes, does not create barriers to certain goods or services, whilst delivering the required emissions reductions is the proposed new model Personal Carbon Allowance. As this model includes a hard cap on emissions, provided the cap is appropriate this model could reduce emissions significantly and become a key weapon in the fight to tackle the climate crisis.<br/
Life cycle assessment and beverage packaging
No full textGlobal plastic production has been increasing annually since World War II and is currently 380 million tonnes. Global concern about pollution from plastics in the seas and the environmental costs of plastics manufacture is rising. This study aimed to: i) review the costs, benefits, advantages / disadvantages of plastics as packaging materials and ii) use life cycle assessment to determine if there is less environmentally impactful beverage packaging than plastic bottles. As different beverages have different packaging needs, three categories were used: commonly used containers for milk, fruit juice and pressurised ‘fizzy’ drinks. The packaging types included in the assessment were glass bottles, aluminium cans, milk cartons, Tetra Pak, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and high-density polythene (HDPE) bottles. The ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006 standards for life cycle assessment formed the basis of the methodology. The open source software openLCA was used to conduct the assessments. Data was assembled from LCA databases such as the European reference Life Cycle Database of the Joint Research Center (ELCD), existing life cycle assessments, scientific reports and peer reviewed literature. The functional unit was set at a container that held one litre of fluid. The results found that in each category there was a less impactful beverage packaging than plastic bottles. In the Pressurised Beverage Category, 100% recycled aluminium cans would be the least impactful option, in the Fruit Juice Beverage Category Tetra Pak would be the least impactful option and in the Milk Beverage Category milk cartons would be the least impactful option
"I'll take the easiest option please". Carbon reduction preferences of the public
No full textThe depth and breadth of the climate crisis is well known, all sectors, industry, government and the individual have the potential to reduce emissions to slow or stop catastrophic climate change. To determine and evaluate the (revealed) preferences of the public in reducing their personal carbon emissions, a conjoint analysis survey, using the PAPRIKA (Potentially All Pairwise RanKings of all possible Alternatives) method, was distributed to the public in a city in the south of England (Southampton). Knowledge of the deep-seated preferences of the public makes a fundamental contribution to future climate actions because it enables publicly acceptable system change to be developed.Results showed the public were unwilling to make large-scale lifestyle changes, even if they would cause large emission reductions. There was a clear preference for making relatively easy, convenient changes to behaviour rather than making more difficult personal lifestyle changes involving diet and transportation. A significant value-action gap is evident, with the public showing high awareness of the seriousness of climate change but showing an unwillingness to make deep cuts to their personal emissions. Demography and personal factors had a relatively low influence over preferences with trends generally staying the same across demographic groups, aside from income brackets. Participants believed that reductions in emissions should come from a ‘group effort’ from all levels of government, business, environmental groups and individuals. Few participants placed themselves as individual drivers of carbon emission reduction. In order to reduce emissions some form of intervention needs to be made, as the public are not personally willing to make large-scale reductions in carbon emissions, regardless of their environmental awareness or demography
Using intergenerational influence and the creative arts to develop public communication methods about e-waste
No full textPersonal carbon budgets: a PESTLE review
No full textPersonal Carbon Budgets (PCBs) are a radical policy innovation that seek to reduce an individual’s carbon consumption. This review identifies three archetypes of PCBs in the current literature; Personal Carbon Trading, Carbon Tax and Carbon Labelling. We theorised that carbon trading could affect equity and allow quality of life and consumption to be driven by income rather than needs. We, therefore, developed a new model (Personal Carbon Allowance with no trading) to compare to existing archetypes. A PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) framework was applied to each archetype to analyse and compare their costs and benefits and to critically evaluate and identify which model may be the most appropriate to reduce emissions severely but equitably. We conclude that the only model that can achieve this is our proposed Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) model with no trading. PCA has a hard cap on emissions allowing for controllable severe cuts to emissions, and the lack of trading would prohibit those with wealth from continuing high-consumption lifestyles at the expense of those with lower incomes
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