Alternative Materials Tool (for single use plastics)

In cases where reusable packaging is not possible, the Alternative Materials Tool guides businesses towards single-use packaging materials with a lower environmental footprint, without transferring the environmental cost to another system. It provides a precise ranking of alternative materials and allows material comparisons.

Using lifecycle environmental data from Ecoinvent and other scientific literature, over two dozen materials commonly used for packaging have been analysed.

The environmental impacts calculated cover raw material extraction, manufacturing, and the impacts of waste treatment in the country of disposal, currently Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.

Why is this one-stop webtool useful?
1) it is based on a life cycle analysis ie impact from extraction of raw materials to disposal
2) it is highly accessible ie free of charge, available to everyone and simple to use
3) it lowers barriers for businesses to reduce their plastic packaging, especially SMEs
4) it is contextualised to Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand
5) it is OPEN-SOURCE, so please share the tool with your network to increase the knowledge about environmental footprints of different materials in the entire industry.