Exploring the three dimensions of sustainability related to clay cups

Since long before the use of disposable foil, plastic and paper cups, clay cups have been widely used in India as single-use containers for a variety of beverages and foods. This is now changing. The cost, convenience and transportability of non-earthen containers has resulted in their replacing clay containers. This paper discusses the gains and losses from this substitution along the three dimensions of sustainability economic, environmental and social, and shows that the replacement analyses for even such a simple product are complex with tradeoffs in the three dimensions impacting the wellbeing of the producers and users. The paper also presents the life cycle assessment of clay cups in terms of endpoint and midpoint categories using ReCiPe method, and also find the environmental hotspots.

Subjects

Disposable Cups

LCE

Social Impact

Sustainability

DDC Class

600: Technik

Publication version

publishedVersion

Lizenz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Name

1-s2.0-S2212827121000421-main.pdf

Size

1.13 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

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Exploring the three dimensions of sustainability related to clay cups