5. Conclusion
The results show that greenhouse gas emissions and
energy consumption of PLA cup production and use were
significantly lower than melamine coffee cup. However, greenhouse
gas emission throughout the life time depends very much on
disposal scenarios. It was observed that with energy recovery
from landfill for PLA cup disposal, greenhouse gas emission
could be significantly reduced. In contrast, greenhouse gas emission
from PLA life cycle could be higher than that of melamine cup
if there is no energy recovery from landfill methane. Comparing
to PLA cup production, abiotic depletion and ecotoxicity associated
with melamine cup production were higher. The results indicate
that use of bio-plastic coffee cup as compared to the
conventional plastic like melamine could be one of the effective
strategies to reduce the environmental impacts, provided that a
proper waste disposal scheme is implemented for the end-of-life
management