Longopac – not just any old waste bag

A lot of what is happening in the environmental and recycling industries is happening quietly and in stages. Improvements are rarely spectacular and so are rarely highlighted by the media. Nonetheless, progress is being made in the area of environmental sustainability which can generate significant gains, both for the environment and the tax-payer.

Healthcare produces a lot of garbage.

Waste generated by the medical services is one example. It is based on a substantial, extensive and costly use of single-use material and packaging which affects the environment. The medical services generate many different types of waste, from household waste to residual products which may include drug residues, infectious matter, chemicals and other hazardous substances.

To reduce the amount of waste generated, most hospitals work to prevent the generation of waste and to use rational systems for sorting and processing waste.

In its environmental programme for 2006-2012, Region Skåne, the Skåne County Council, with its 33,000 employees and nine hospitals, has adopted a target of reducing the amount of waste and increasing recycling by 15 percent by 2008. To achieve this target, the county council has adopted a waste minimisation plan, and has commissioned an analysis of which product groups and types of waste has the greatest impact on climate and generates the highest costs. The result showed that waste not classified as hazardous still ended up in hazardous waste bags. This generated increased costs, required more transports and larger quantities of waste than necessary was being incinerated. In addition, larger quantities of packaging were required for hazardous waste, which, in turn, contains more material than standard packaging.

Another problem was that waste bags for household waste were often collected and dumped before they were full. The scientists demonstrated the link between waste packaging and the impact on the climate: using more waste bags than necessary increases carbon dioxide emissions.

Paxxo-säckar.

Fuller waste bags with less polythene decrease carbon dioxide emissions.

To rectify the problems, Region Skåne is now using an alternative bag system developed by the Paxxo company in Malmö.”Our bags are made from polythene and are thinner than traditional waste bags. They are only half as thick, but the strength has been retained, largely as a result of our production process”, says Carl-Hugo Péters, CEO of Paxxo. He adds that the trend for thinner but stronger materials is set to continue.

One of the benefits of the system is that the users themselves can decide how large each bag should be. Longopac is sold throughout the world to industrial operations, hospitals and purification plants. Since it is available in different colours, it can be used for sorting-at-source. A biologically-degradable version of the bag can be composted.

The climate survey commissioned by Region Skåne was based on a life-cycle perspective. A Longopac bag was compared with a traditional bag, and the results showed that the Longopac bag generated 11 times less carbon dioxide than the traditional bag. The reason was that the environmentally-sustainable bags were filled on collection, and that less polythene was used to make the thinner bag.

This article was first published in Advantage Environment printed in February 2008

Facts about Paxxo AB

  • Paxxo AB offers products for processing waste products in the retail and industrial sectors, treatment plants and hospitals.
  • The company is owned by Carl-Hugo Péters and family.
  • Sales of SEK 36 million (2006). The company has a staff of 19, and is based in Malmö.

More information on life cycle analysis

When scientists analysed the impact on the climate of waste bags, they examined the carbon dioxide emissions throughout the life of the bag. The life cycle analysis method, or LCA (from Life Cycle Assessment), is used to produce an overall picture of the environmental impact of a product or service over its life cycle, from raw material extraction, via the production process and use, to waste processing. Transports and all energy consumption in the intermediate stages must be included. By ascertaining what part of the production chain has the greatest environmental impact, it is easier to understand what measures have to be taken to reduce energy usage or resource utilisation, for example.

The international standards organisation, ISO, has developed a life cycle analysis standard and an LCA in accordance with ISO 14040 which is divided into the following stages:

  • Definition of the goal and scope of the LCA
  • Inventory analysis: information on material and processes is gathered. The environmental impact of the relevant processes is established.
  • Environmental impact: this phase is divided into classification, characterisation and evaluation.
  • Interpretation of results: the interpretation may involve an analysis of improvements, where the environmental impact of the product can be reduced.

An LCA is always based on a specific quantity of a certain product, e.g. one waste bag, one car or a kilogram of bananas. The result of the analysis is a picture of the quantities of natural resources consumed and of the substances discharged into the air, ground and water. The discharges can be translated into environmental effects, such as impact on the climate, acidification and eutrophication. In the case of the waste bags, the weight of the material, its composition, the site at which the bags were produced, the transports and how full of waste the bags were, were important components in the calculations

In many cases, it is difficult to give a straightforward answer to the question of whether one product has a greater environmental impact than another. Question marks always arise as to how different environmental effects should be assessed against each other. There are, however, different systems for this type of evaluation, but they provide slightly different results. On the other hand, an interpretation of the inventory data itself provides a pretty good picture of the environmental impact of a product or operation. For this reason, it is quite common for clients to settle for a life cycle inventory (LCI) and decline an overall assessment.

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