Comparative life cycle assessment of reusable and single use take-away lunch boxes used in student restaurants
Journal article, 2024

Student restaurants at Chalmers University have adopted take-away lunch boxes as a convenient dining option for students with disposable single-use containers being the norm. However, there is a growing interest in more sustainable, reusable alternatives. This study conducted a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to assess the potential environmental and economic impacts of using reusable lunch boxes in comparison to disposable ones, considering 18 environmental impact categories. The functional unit chosen for evaluation was the provision of takeaway lunches to Chalmers students over the course of a year. The findings revealed that reusable boxes with 20 uses outperformed their disposable counterparts in many environmental impacts, reducing the climate change impact by 59%. However, water and energy consumption were higher for the reusable option by 99% and 62% respectively, primarily due to the cleaning process. From an economic perspective, reusable boxes proved to be 3.3% more costly than disposable ones. In conclusion, this study highlights the benefits of reusable solutions, showing reductions in various environmental footprints but presenting slightly higher economic footprints over 20 uses. However, as the number of uses increases, the advantages also increase, leading to recommendations for better management of the lunch boxes to maximize their reusable potential.

Economic assessment

Lunch boxes

Climate change

Life cycle assessment

Reusable

Author

Rahul Aggarwal

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Cleaner Environmental Systems

26667894 (eISSN)

Vol. 14 100223

ZeroPM: Zero pollution of Persistent, Mobile substances

European Commission (EC) (101036756), 2021-10-01 -- 2026-09-30.

Subject Categories

Economics

Environmental Management

DOI

10.1016/j.cesys.2024.100223

More information

Latest update

9/20/2024