Sustainable planning of empty agrochemical containers valorization

In the last decades, plastic containers have been used to store pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers by the agricultural industry. Once these are used, these containers imply an environmental risk due to their wrong disposal in ravines, bodies of water, municipal garbage dumps, roads, or even through incineration. Actions lead to negative ecological impacts, such as water bodies poisoning, visual pollution, and atmospheric pollution. Nevertheless, the revalorization of these containers could offer an opportunity to promote sustainable practices. Therefore, this study quantified the environmental impacts of four final disposal pathways of one ton of this waste. The environmental impact was obtained by conducting a life cycle assessment. The results indicate that the most favorable scenario involves using 70% of waste to produce bio-jet fuel and 30% to produce pellets, reaching 0.0262 DALYs of damage in the human health category, 0.6282 PDF-m2-y in the ecosystems quality, and 0.0183 MJ in resource use.