Metric ton plant

Production. Production of polycarbonate has steadily increased since the opening of the first commercial plants in the early 1960s. Woddwide capacity reached 665,000 t in 1992 (38). Since the mid-1980s, production has increased at 8—13% per year. Expected capacity in 1995 is over one million metric tons. Plants have opened in several countries, including Japan, China, Korea, and Brazil, although as of this writing (1995) the United States remains the primary producer of polycarbonate. U.S. production is about 47% of that woddwide. 

Cargill Dow Polymers (CDP) regards LCA to be an excellent process development tool to provide an insight about the polylactic acid (PLA) production, to set process improvements goals and to provide eco-profile data to be used by practitioners in performing their own life cycle studies . On the other hand, CDP wants to make information available for the shareholders and the public due to the increasing demand of transparency. CDP started the first LCA in 1993 and updated it 3 times. In 2003, when the 140000 metric ton plant (MTPA) facility will be operative, new engineering data will be available for a next update. 

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