Herberz, TimoBarlow, Claire Y.Finkbeiner, Matthias2020-11-182020-11-182020-05-05https://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/handle/11303/11997http://dx.doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-10877Governments around the world are introducing single-use plastics bans to alleviate plastic marine pollution. This paper investigates whether banning single-use plastic items is an appropriate strategy to protect the environment. Product life cycle assessment was conducted for single-use plastic and single-use non-plastic alternatives. The life cycle impacts of the two product categories were compared and scaled according to EU consumption of 2016. The results show that a single-use plastics ban would decrease plastic marine pollution in the EU by 5.5% which equates to a 0.06% decrease globally. However, such a ban would increase emissions contributing to marine aquatic toxicity in the EU by 1.4%. This paper concludes that single-use items are harmful to the environment regardless of their material. Therefore, banning or imposing a premium price on single-use items in general and not only single-use plastic items is a more effective method of reducing consumption and thereby pollution. The plastics ban only leads to a small reduction of global plastic marine pollution and thus provides only a partial solution to the problem it intends to solve.en333 Boden- und Energiewirtschaftsingle-use plasticsplastics banplastic marine pollutionLCAplastics policyArticle2020-06-102071-1050