Terrestrial Ecotoxicity of Plastics: Effect Factors for Life Cycle Impact Assessment

Abstract

Soils act as major plastic pollution sinks, with potential implications for terrestrial ecosystem services. In life cycle assessment (LCA), such impacts are quantified using characterization factors that describe the fate, exposure, and effects of emitted substances. In this study, we develop terrestrial ecotoxicity exposure-and-effect factors (XEFs) for plastics in soil for use in LCA. We compiled 680 effect concentrations (ECs) from published ecotoxicity studies involving plants and invertebrates and converted them to EC10eq values. Following the USEtox framework, species-specific average EC10eq values were used to construct log–normal fitted species sensitivity distribution curves, from which XEFs were derived. The resulting XEF for plastics in soil equals 0.128 [0.07; 0.30] PAF·m3·kg–1. Specific XEFs for nanoplastics ≤1 μm and plastics >1 μm were calculated at 0.921 [0.11; 13.10] and 0.126 [0.07; 0.29] PAF·m3·kg–1, respectively. Specific XEFs for natural and agricultural soil were estimated at 0.159 [0.08; 0.40] and 0.236 [0.09; 0.77] PAF·m3·kg–1, respectively. The derived XEFs are lower than aquatic and sediment XEFs by 4 and 2 orders of magnitude, respectively. Consequently, direct read-across between compartments is not justified. Overall, the proposed XEFs are compatible with the USEtox methodology and enable improved inclusion of plastic-related terrestrial ecotoxicity impacts in LCA.