Evaluation of Glass and Pet Packaging Wastes Generated by Beverage Industry Within The Scope of Environmental Sustainability

Increase in urbanization and industrialization especially due to population growth leads to excess production in packaging materials and waste, consumption of natural resources, generation of greenhouse gases, which causes continually increasing climate change problems. In this manner, to prevent climate change, decreased biodiversity, contamination and deterioration of oceans and forests, the European Union Green Deal content ensures effective use of resources and creates a competitive green economy perspective to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions by the year of 2050. Circular economy covering the reduction in waste and emission and if it is not possible reintroducing packaging waste into the production line effectively leads to prevent these adverse environmental and economic impacts. In this chapter, environmental impacts of glass and PET based packaging waste generated by beverage industry were evaluated in terms of circular economy while regarding life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. Thus, if environmental impacts cannot be reduced in design phase and waste prevention cannot be achieved, environmental sustainability and circular economy can be obtained by recycling practices.