PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF 7UP BOTTLE

ABSTRACT

Studying the life cycle of 7up bottle is of great importance not only to the producers but to the users and the entire environment.The work broadly covers the entire life of the bottle from raw materials, production phase to the end of its life. The environmental impacts include those from emissions into the environment and through the consumption of resources, as well as associated with producing the bottle that occur when extracting resources, producing materials, manufacturing the products, during consumption/use, and at the products’ end-of-life (collection/sorting, reuse, recycling, waste disposal). These emissions and consumptions contribute to a wide range of impacts, the depletion of resources, water use, land use, and noise—among others. A clear need, therefore, exists to provide complimentary insights, to help reduce such impacts. The raw materials are readily available except for soda ash sodium sulphate and iron chromate which are supplied from outside the Country and are very expensive.

Energy is most utilized at the melting stage, the furnace alone accounts for 70% of the total plant demand, while the batch stage and transportation has the least of energy consumption. A few of the total bottle produced for the batch under review were unrecovered from the consumers and most of the recovered bottles after being reused two times for the period of two and half years ,were crushed and used for recycle for further production. The greenhouse gases were emitted greatly at melting stage due to the fuel type LPFO (low pour flow oil) used in running the furnace .It is a by-product of crude oil which burn slowly. Dust particulates were also observed at the point of unloading of the raw materials and batch house.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0         INTRODUCTION

1.1         Glass Life-Cycle Assessment

The product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) allows toquantify a product‘s environmental footprint, in accordance with international standards, It studies two major aspects:

1. The whole product Life Cycle: from the raw materials and production phase to the end of the product life.
2. All environmental impacts: water consumption, air pollution, resource utilization, and energy.

While a project life cycle assessment establishes an important quantitative benchmark, the full sustainable benefits of glass packaging include additional environmental, health, social and economic dimensions that reach above and beyond what can be measured in an LCA. These include health and safety, recycling, reuse and resource efficiency; the full benefits of glass social, environmental and technical recycling and reuse. Glass recycling and reuse contribute significantly to reducing glass packaging‘s carbon footprint (Abrahams, and John 2002). The use of recycled glass or cullet in batch materials has the following beneficial impacts:

1. Every 1 kg of cullet used replaces 1.2kg of virgin raw materials that would otherwise need to be extracted.
2. Every 10 percent of recycled glass or cullet used in the production results in an approximate 5 percent reduction in carbon emission and energy savings of about 3 percent.
3. Glass is resource efficient; it can be reused in its original form more than other packaging materials. Additionally, several initiatives currently underway in the glass industry that will further increase the efficiency of glass packaging. Such efforts include including ; to improve recovery and recycling of glass containers, help eliminate the diversion of glass to landfill; leading to a decrease in energy use and global warming potential (Andreola, al., 2005).
4. Light weighting glass containers reduces raw material usage, emissions, energy use and the overall weight.
5. Packaging‘s most important function is product preservation and no other packaging material does this better than glass.

1.2         Life History of Glass

According to Chang, (2008), glass dates back to the Stone Age when naturally occurring glass (especially the volcanic glass obsidian) was used globally by many Stone Age societies for the production of sharp cutting tools and jewelry. Another rare form of naturally occurring glass is called fulgurite (commonly called ‗petrified lightning‘) which occurs when lightning strikes sand and the resultant heat sometimes fuses the sand into long slender glass tubes. The scarcity and selective source areas of these naturally occurring glasses made them valuable materials for trade. Archaeological evidence however suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal North Syria, Mesopotamia or Ancient Egypt, (Douglas, 1972). Early glass production relied on grinding techniques borrowed from stone working. This meant that glass was ground and carved at a cold state. The disasters that overtook the Late Bronze Age civilizations brought glass-making to a halt and it only picked up again in its former sites, in Syria and Cyprus, in the 9th century BCE, when the techniques for making colorless glass were discovered. In Egypt however, glass-making did not revive until it was reintroduced in Ptolemaic Alexandria, (Helmenstine, 2012).

1.3         Statement of the Research Problem

When you buy a bottle of 7up drink, most of the cost is for the liquid and the bottle. But what about the environmental cost? Manufacturing, filling, labeling, shipping, storing and recycling of the bottles is expensive. In responding to the imperative to reduce greenhouse gases, life cycle modeling tool is used to measures the environmental impact of every stage in the bottle life cycle.Each of these life cycle stages yields carbon emissions that contribute to the total carbon footprint. As a result, customers and consumers get a clear picture of 7up bottle packaging which provides insight into the bottle quality and the bottle‘s positive or negative environmental impacts.

1.4         Aim of the Study

The aim of this research is to assess the life cycle of 7up bottle production and the associated environmental impacts generated at every stage, using Sunglass as a case study.

1.5         Objective of the Study

The objectives of this study are to:

1. Study the stages in the life cycle of the 7up container glass, with consideration to a particular batch.
2. Assess the impacts associated with every stage in the life of a the bottle

• Study the span of the bottles with 7up bottling Company, its end users and back to  the Sunglass Company

1.6         Research Questions

This research work tends to ask the following questions:

1. What are the stages in the life cycles of the 7up container bottle?
2. What are the impacts associated with every stage in the life of a bottle?

• How long does the 7up Bottling Company use the bottles before they are returned to Sunglass for recycling?

1.7         Significance of The Study.

To evaluate the environmental profile of 7 up bottle, through its life cycle stages and determining its improvement opportunities., towards having more sustainable and more environment friendly 7up bottle.The outcome of the study will help us to understand the requirement and potentiality of 7up bottle packaging industry.

1.8         Basic Assumption

The basic assumptions of this study are:

1. There are adverse environmental impacts in the life cycle of 7up container glasses that need to be addressed.
2. There will be possible solutions to minimize the adverse environmental impacts by 75%.

1.9         Delimitation of the Study

The delimitation of this study is to work with data collected from Sunglass Nigeria Ltd,Kaduna on a particular batch of feed consisting 50% of Virgin materials for glass and 50% Cullet.

1.10      Scope of the Study

The study covers raw materials extraction and processing, heating and melting stage of the raw materials, bottle formation, distribution, usage and end of life.

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