Bio-based Plastics - A Building Block for the Circular Economy?

Bio-based plastics have been identified as a promising alternative to conventional plastics with regards to finite fossil resources and climate change. With emerging novel bio-based plastics and 70% of its market share in short life cycle packaging applications, the end-of-life options (recycling, anaerobic and aerobic digestion, energy recovery etc.) as well as the resource circulation have been moved into the spotlight and have to be assessed. This paper will provide an insight into the bio-based plastics in the context of circular economy and gives an overview on its status and potential future development. The focus is set on the assessment of the potential environmental impacts of the different end-of-life options and resource circulation of bio-based plastics with the help of life cycle assessment. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.