Single-use plastic tableware and its alternatives: Recommendations from Life Cycle Assessments

Single-use plastic tableware and its alternatives: Recommendations from Life Cycle Assessments

Published: February 2021

Globally, billions of plastic forks, knives, spoons, bowls, plates and trays are produced each year to fuel the take-away food industry and stock hotels, hospitals and school catering systems. This report is a meta-analysis of six Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies to understand the environmental performance of single-use tableware and their alternatives. The analysis demonstrates that while there are multiple variables that affect the environmental impacts of both single-use and reusable tableware – including materials used in their production and end-of-life treatment – reusable tableware consistently outperforms single-use tableware in all the studies and across all environmental impact categories (with water use being the exception, because of washing).

publication year

Data and Methods

Life cycle assessment

Document type

Meta-study

Language

English

Sector or product area

Plastics, Single-use plastic products