Packaging household function

Dutch legislation classifies a number of domestic products such as paints, medicines, pesticides and all types of batteries, as small chemical waste (KCA). Importers or manufacturers of these products are required to mark them with a special KCA symbol either on the packaging or on the product itself. The general public are informed that these products must not be disposed of with other household waste, but they are to be stored separately in a special KCA container, an ecobox. These wastes are collected separately on a regular basis by the municipality, and stored in one of more than 450 municipal depots. This is an example of a co-mingled collection system. The municipalities themselves are responsible for the adequate functioning and the costs of this part of the process. 

Some such functions are common and day to day others are high-tech. Packaging, by far, represents the majority of plastic use. Other apphcations for plastics notably inclnde functions in clothing, automobiles, bicycles, household goods, constraction, paving, toys, mobile telephones, computers and medical accessories the uses of plastic extend, quite hterally, from a small plastic bag to gargantuan airliners. 

A streamlined LCA study was done to assess the life cycle impacts of these chosen packaging systems with the aid of Simapro software, clubbed with Australian and International data. The following functional unit was used in this study a household... 

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