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The missing link: A systematic review of microplastics and its neglected role in life-cycle assessment
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This systematic review found that life-cycle assessments of plastic products almost never account for microplastic pollution. This means the true environmental and health impacts of plastics are being significantly underestimated in the tools used to guide policy decisions. The researchers call for better data on microplastic release and its effects so that the full cost of plastic products can be properly measured.
The issue of plastic pollution has been exacerbated by the discovery of small plastic particles known as "microplastic". While the harmful effects of microplastics are becoming increasingly apparent, life-cycle assessment (LCA), as a holistic environmental assessment tool, has yet to offer a solution that can quantitatively capture the impacts associated with microplastics. In this paper, we conducted a systematic literature review to investigate how existing LCA studies quantify the environmental and human health effects of microplastics. A detailed analysis of 187 studies revealed that microplastics are rarely quantified, or even qualitatively discussed, in most LCAs. Thus, the true impacts of plastic products may be underrepresented and underestimated, leading to biased decision-making. We believe that this status quo is attributable to four fundamental issues, including (i) lack of microplastic leakage data; (ii) lack of quantitative cause-effect relationships between microplastic concentration and their impacts; (iii) exclusion of the "use" phase from the scope of analysis; and (iv) exclusion of long-term effects from landfilled plastic waste. These findings highlight the need for greater efforts and investment in microplastic research and data collection. To address the current knowledge gap, this article presents practical recommendations on how microplastics can be incorporated into the LCA framework, based on latest research.
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This study assessed the relevance of direct microplastic emissions into freshwater from a life cycle assessment perspective, providing initial inventory data and identifying key knowledge gaps needed to incorporate microplastic impacts into environmental assessments.
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