AN APPROACH FOR ANALYZING THE POTENTIAL FOR MATERIAL EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT

Material efficiency improvement saves energy and reduces the consumpti on of primary resources and reduces the volume of waste. In this artic le an approach for analysing the potential for material efficiency imp rovement is proposed and discussed. In this approach the product funct ions performed by the materials and various improvement measures are t aken into account. The potential for material saving and associated en ergy saving is assessed and evaluated economically. In this paper the approach is tested in an analysis of the potential for material effici ency improvement with respect to plastic packaging in the Netherlands, The technical reduction potential is found to be 34 +/- 7% (157 +/- 3 0 ktonne virgin plastics). Realization of this potential would improve the energy efficiency of the lifecycle of plastic packaging by 31% (1 0 PJ in 1988). From our study we conclude that our approach can indeed be used to investigate the potential for material efficiency improvem ent. However, a reliable technical and particularly an economical asse ssment of reduction measures cannot be made until more detailed data b ecome available.