Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Recycled Polypropylene, Virgin Polypropylene, and Virgin Cotton Tote Bags: Environmental, Economic, and Durability Analysis

This study presents a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of three reusable tote bag materials, recycled polypropylene (rPP), virgin polypropylene (vPP), and virgin cotton, using the ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint and Endpoint (H) methods in OpenLCA with the Ecoinvent 3.9 database, in compliance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards.

The functional unit is defined as carrying 5 kg of groceries over 100 shopping trips under a cradle-to-grave system boundary. Results show that rPP achieves the lowest environmental impact across nearly all 17 impact categories, with over 50% reduction in global warming potential and 65% reduction in fossil resource use compared to vPP. Cotton exhibits the highest impacts in water consumption, land use, and toxicity due to agrochemical-intensive cultivation. Sensitivity analysis identifies reuse frequency, recycled content, and energy mix as critical sustainability drivers.

Overall, recycled polypropylene provides the best balance of environmental performance, cost-efficiency, and durability, supporting circular economy principles in sustainable packaging applications.