Plastic Additive Manufacturing Versus Circular Economy

The assessment of the performance of the circular economy remains under discussion and is still under development. Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly crucial for companies aiming to capitalize on the promises of the circular economy. As a result, providing methodologies and tools to analyze and improve product performance in the context of the circular economy has become an important but underserved topic. The present study investigates a set of methodologies proposed to measure a product's circularity performance in the field of plastic additive manufacturing (PAM). The investigated methodologies, in particular, take into account the PLA polymer, which is widely used in PAM. A set of existing methodologies is discussed. Although some of these approaches allow for the computation of values quantifying circularity performance, the entire complexity of the circular economy paradigm is far from being entirely explored, and an accurate model would need to take into account the environmental impact, the energy consumption, and the material’s characteristics during its lifespan. The paper's concluding remarks draw a number of important observations, requirements, and practical implications for circularity assessment, which must be considered and addressed in order to achieve both reliability of circularity performance and consensus on the methodology for assessing it. Furthermore, a modeling methodology combining the presented studies will lead to the creation and development of new indicators aimed at monitoring product circularity performance.