Bioplastics and Life Cycle Assessment

According to Comite Europeen de Normalisation/ Comite Europeen de Normalisation en filectronique et en Electrotechnique (CEN/CENELEC) Technical Specification TC 249 WI [11], bioplastics (and biopolymers as well) can be either biobased or biodegradable, or both. We refer to this definition when using the term bioplastics throughout the chapter. 

In other cases, bioplastics producers make use of LCA to highlight the environmental performance of their products, not necessarily by comparison with other alternatives. This is, for instance, the case of ISO type III environmental declarations, such as EPD, which have been published for corn starch-based plastics [8]. Again, the EPD is a good instrument for the marketing and communication of products such as bioplastics, which built their commercial success on environmental performance and being perceived as more sustainable by clients and consumers. 

The purpose of this work is not to summarise the current literature on the LCA of bioplastics, which can be found using public information sources. This work, building 

The following sections try to respond to such questions and provide some insight on the most typical pecnliarities of bioplastics from a life cycle perspective. 

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