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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Creators: Halden, Rolf
In the current age of global climate crisis, corporations must confront the rising pressure to mitigate their environmental impacts. The goal of this research paper is to provide corporations with a resource to manage waste through the implementation of a circular economy and by increasing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Navigating this large and complex system required the use of various methodologies including: the investigation of the relationships between waste management systems and sustainable development across major companies; literature reviews of scholarly articles about CSR, circular economies, recycling, and releases of company reports on sustainable development and financials. Lastly, interviews and a survey were conducted to gain deeper insight into the problems that make circular economies so difficult to achieve at scale.
In this study, single-use plastics in the food packaging industry were systematically reviewed in order to determine their ‘essentiality’ for product longevity. Four grocery stores were chosen and their brands ‘in plastic’ and ‘not in plastic’ were counted. Seven subcategories of food and drink types were created such that a proportion was representative of the brands in plastic per category.
The results of the systematic review showed that the majority of categories sampled from in each store had at least 80% of their brands in plastic packaging. Across four of the seven subcategories, 99-100% of each stores’ brands were in plastic packaging. Furthermore, six alternatives to single-use plastic packaging were reviewed and compared to current methods of food and drink packaging. This comparison deemed that none of the single-use packaging methods utilized in grocery stores were considered essential.
While this study concluded that none of the single-use plastics reviewed were deemed essential, alternatives still remain at a higher cost of production. Further innovation and widespread production of safe alternatives are both integral factors in reducing plastic production and protecting the future of the environment.
Plastic pollution is undoubtedly one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today. Significant action is required in order to properly address this rapidly growing threat. The Circular Economy provides a promising model for solution design in terms of responsible consumption and production. Countdown: Circular Economy Solutions is an organization created by Jasmine Amoako-Agyei focused on addressing the threat of plastic pollution in the United States and Ghana, West Africa. The first part of this report will explain the severity of the global plastic pollution crisis and challenges with recycling. It will then present the Circular Economy as a viable model for a course of action. From there it will explain the efforts of Countdown: Circular Economy Solutions over the last two with a pathway forward. This venture leveraged the greater ASU ecosystem of resources such as Walton Sustainability Solutions, Precious Plastic ASU, the Luminosity Lab, Changemaker Central, Venture Devils, Engineering Projects in Community Service (ASU), Gary K. Herberger Young Scholars Academy, KNUST, and Ashesi D: Lab.
Synthetic plastics are ubiquitously used in a broad range of applications, including food and drink packaging. Plastics often contain chemical additives, including bisphenols, phthalates, and terephthalic acid, which can degrade under thermal stress. The environmental presence of these chemicals is cause for public concern, especially in consumer products that utilize plastic packaging, as many have been identified as endocrine disruptors. This study sought to determine exposure to phthalates, bisphenols, and terephthalic acid by quantifying a broad spectrum of these analytes within three bottled water brands at varying temperature exposure levels using the combination of solid phase extraction followed by isotope dilution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Monobenzyl phthalate was detected in two of the three brands after bottles were heated to ~100 °C, ranging from 98 – 107 ng/L, and bisphenol A was detected in one brand at ~100 °C at an average concentration of 748 ± 36 ng/L. Subsequent mass loading calculations demonstrated that bioaccumulation of BPA from Brand C after high levels of temperature exposure well exceeded the tolerable daily intake (TDI). Findings in this study indicate that consumers should not be expected to incur harmful exposures to the target compounds under normal conditions as analytes were not measured in water bottle samples at 25 °C or 60 °C. Further studies should explore a more nuisance approach to heating over long durations, including that of ultraviolet exposure.
The cosmetic industry utilizes plastic for most of its packaging, as it is a cheap option that produces packaging that is highly durable and resistant to many chemicals. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most commonly used plastic in cosmetic packaging, and is an ideal candidate for recycling due to their short lifespan and low diffusion coefficient. However, cosmetic packaging is often not recycled properly due to its small size, contributing to the growing global plastic waste problem. If a sustainable closed-loop system was created where cosmetic packaging was created using purely recycled PET, then the amount of plastic produced could be reduced. By examining the mechanical properties of recycled composite PET from the cosmetic industry, conclusions can be drawn about its applicability in cosmetic packaging. The water absorption, UV-visible absorbance, and tensile strength was tested for recycled composite PET to predict how the material would perform if it was used in cosmetic packaging. It was found that the recycled composite PET did not perform as well as virgin PET in terms of water absorption and tensile strength, but performed similarly in reference to UV-visible absorbance. More research needs to be done to further characterize the mechanical properties of recycled composite PET before it can be used in cosmetic packaging, but this study analyzes three of the most prominent aspects found in cosmetic packaging.
Plastic consumption has reached astronomical amounts. The issue is the single-use plastics that continue to harm the environment, degrading into microplastics that find their way into our environment. Finding sustainable, reliable, and safe methods to break down plastics is a complex but valuable endeavor. This research aims to assess the viability of using biochar as a catalyst to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics under hydrothermal liquefaction conditions. PET is most commonly found in single-use plastic water bottles. Using glycolysis as the reaction, biochar is added and assessed based on yield and time duration of the reaction. This research suggests that temperatures of 300℃ and relatively short experimental times were enough to see the complete conversion of PET through glycolysis. Further research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of biochar as a catalyst and the potential of process industrialization to begin reducing plastic overflow.