This study evaluated the environmental performance of PLA and
PET bottles for drinking water based on a life cycle perspective. For
cradle-to-gate analysis, PET bottles contributed higher values in
almost all impact categories, except for eutrophication and acidification
potential. It is shown that PLA bottles can reduce CO2
emissions, human toxicity and fossil energy demand. On the other
hand, PLA causes high impact in terms of eutrophication due to a
high COD in cassava starch wastewater generated for the base case
scenario. Based on option I and II, EP impact of PLAwas highest due
to the cultivation stage because cassava planting requires the use of
agrochemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides that contributed to
eutrophication potential. The results showed that cassava-based
PLA resin had a much higher GHG emissions than sugarcane- and
corn-based PLA. This can be explained that both the sugarcane- and
corn-based PLA took into account the CO2 uptake during the plant
growth, while CO2 uptake during the cassava cultivation of the
cassava-based PLA was not included since CO2 uptake was released
into the atmosphere at the end-of-life of the PLA product. However,
the overall GWP can be lowered by improvement options proposed
in this study which are improved utilization of wastewater from
cassava starch plant to produce biogas for steam and electricity
production, and applying a CHP system in the PLA plant. By
incorporating these improvement options in the analysis, the GWP
performance of cassava-based PLA has shown to be better than