(390f) Material Flow Analysis of Bioplastics Manufacturing Using Agricultural Residues in US for Pharmaceutical Packaging

Using biomass from waste resources is a low-cost option for bio-based material production without further agricultural inputs such as land, water, and fertilizer. The Billion Ton report of 2016 reported that under the base case scenario, the US was projected to have around 105 and 125 million dry tons of agricultural residue available at 60/dry ton in 2017 and 2022, respectively (Langholtz et al., 2016) . A majority of this residue is left in the field after harvest, and used for fodder, tilled back into the soil for increased soil fertility or incinerated. However, in recent years, there has been an increased growth in bio-based product manufacturing. There are various studies that report the manufacture of bio-based plastics from agricultural residue. Since most of these are biodegradable, it further increases waste utilization efficiency and can reduce plastic pollution. Packaging is one of the largest biobased plastic market segments. Currently, 70% of the bio-based plastics are used in short-life packaging options. This has led to a growing interest in studying the end-of-life options and the potential for circular economy (Spierling et al., 2018) . Pharmaceutical packaging is the packing and packaging processes for pharmaceutical preparations. Optimal drug packaging maximizes the physical and chemical stability of the medication, which may be affected by environmental factors such as light, temperature, and humidity. Various types of packaging options exist in the market today based on the type and form of drug, dosage, quantity, and other specific physical properties of the drug. Since the packaging options are so varied, it is challenging to have a one-size-fits-all solution for a more sustainable end-of-life option. This study focuses on the potential impact of replacing traditional pharmaceutical packaging with bio-based and biodegradable plastics to increase resource efficiency and provide more sustainable end-of-life options, specifically with reference to acetaminophen packaging. Facilitation of environmental and economic sustainability requires an understanding of the structure of the material economy and the material flows/waste generation in industrial networks to minimize the environmental consequences of these industrial systems. Physical Input-Output Tables (PIOTs) are uniquely suited for this purpose by mapping physical flows between industrial sectors. PIOT-Hub, a cloud-based tool, automates the generation of Physical Supply Tables (PSTs) and Physical Use Tables (PUTs), in addition to their conversion into PIOTs using mechanistic models and macroeconomic Input-output framework (Vunnava et al., 2022 . The goal of this study is to study the impact of bio-based, biodegradable pharmaceutical packaging manufacturing on material and elemental flows in regional industrial networks. We develop process flow models for waste-to-plastics manufacturing and employ PIOT-Hub for studying the industrial network flows. We utilize this tool to identify new material circularization opportunities. We further conduct an elemental flow analysis to track the flow of Carbon and Nitrogen within the network.

References

Langholtz, M. H., Stokes, B. J., & Eaton, L. M. (2016). 2016 Billion-Ton Report: Advancing Domestic Resources for a Thriving Bioeconomy. https://doi.org/10.2172/1271651

Spierling, S., Röttger, C., Venkatachalam, V., Mudersbach, M., Herrmann, C., & Endres, H. J. (2018). Bio-based Plastics - A Building Block for the Circular Economy? Procedia CIRP, 69, 573–578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.11.017

Vunnava, V. S. G., Shin, J., Zhao, L., & Singh, S. (2022). PIOT-Hub - A collaborative cloud tool for generation of physical input–output tables using mechanistic engineering models. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 26(1), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13204