RESEARCHERS STUDY WHETHER RENEWABLE IS ALWAYS BETTER
The study by Daniel Posen, Paulina Jaramillo and Michael Griffin in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP), was published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology and featured on the Front Page of the Carnegie Mellon University homepage. From their article:
“Making plastics from plants is a growing trend. It’s renewable, but is it better?
“A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers examines the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of three plant-based plastics at each stage of production compared with that of their common fossil fuel-based counterparts…
“The study is novel in the way it treats uncertainty and looks at emissions over the life cycle of plastics. The researchers used a technique called life cycle assessment that analyzes emissions at each stage in the life of a product: resource extraction to manufacturing, to use of the product and end of life.”
Read more at http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/july/plantbased-plastics-lifecycle.html.
