Minimizing the Environmental Impacts of Plastic Pollution through Ecodesign of Products with Low Environmental Persistence.

ABSTRACT: While plastic pollution threatens ecosystems and human health, the use of plastic products continues to increase. Limiting its harm requires design strategies for plastic products informed by the threats that plastics pose to the environment. Thus, we developed a sustainability metric for the ecodesign of plastic products with low environmental persistence and uncompromised performance. To do this, we integrated the environmental degradation rate of plastic into established material selection strategies, deriving material indices for environmental persistence. By comparing indices for the environmental impact of on-the-market plastics and proposed alternatives, we show that accounting for the environmental persistence of plastics in design could translate to societal benefits of hundreds o

SUBMITTER: James BD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10806995 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature