Wegmans Egg Cartons LCA

In the same vein of the last post, Wegmans recently did a LCA of their egg cartons to see if it made sense to switch to paper egg cartons from foam. It did - but not for the reasons you would have expected.

I think this example stands out as an example of an LCA (life cycle analysis) that the public deserves. It hits the major points without being too detailed for the general public. They say that foam has just as much impact as paper, but they assume you are throwing away your paper egg cartons. Obviously, paper lends itself to recycling or composting easier, so it may not always be equal to foam.

My point here is that they did the analysis, which is great, came up with an answer, but then also documented their assumptions, so that consumers can understand the process and draw their own assumptions to better assess their own impact.

My point is that these analyses are not simple or strait forward, and they rarely can be boiled down to a one-size-fits-all solution.