| Abstract
| - Annual environmental performance of packaging productswhich are reused at least once per year is analyzedwith respect to three specific criteria: (1) waste quantities,(2) virgin material demand and resource depletion, and(3) environmental impacts from manufacturing. Packagingflow performance is assessed via a combined reuse/recycle rate index expressed solely in terms of twodimensionless parameters: the conventional recyclingrate and the mean number of reuse trips. Quantitativeexpressions describe the effect of the following physicalquantities: annual reuse frequency, lifetime, maximum numberof reuse trips, amount of packaging present in themarket, annual production plus net trade imports, recyclerate of consumer discard, reuse rate and consumerdiscard. The results may serve for packaging monitoringand assessment of alternative packaging systems and forsetting more efficient environmental policy targets interms of the reuse/recycle rate.
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