Modelling the EU plastic value chain and assessing its environmental impacts: approaches, data sources and hotspots towards a circular plastic value chain

This study developed a comprehensive top-down Material Flow Analysis (MFA) covering the entire value chain across nine economic sectors and focusing on ten specific polymers within the EU27 in 2019. MFA has in fact been employed in the recent years as a key tool for assessing products flows and to unveil hotspots of value chains that could hinder circularity and sustainability. Sector-specific MFAs were computed using sets of Transfer Coefficients (TCs) matrices at the level of sectors and polymers. TCs are defined for each input and output flows of a process along the value chain and serve the purpose of detailing the total amount of a substance that is transferred from a process to another one. The MFA was also linked to a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis, aimed at unveiling the environmental impacts of the whole value chain and at providing methodological guidance on linking LCA with MFA results.