In the last decades plastics consumption worldwide has increased at an average yearly rate of about 8%, attaining an all times maximum in 2012, at 288 million tones. Further, plastics manufacturing is energy intensive and their End of Life is difficult to manage. These and other considerations led to an increasing number of published studies on the environmental and economic consequences of making, using and disposing of plastic products. The present work focuses on the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies for evaluating environmental and economic impacts of polymers and polymer composites materials and products. Current publications were reviewed and differences in methods and results discussed. It was concluded that literature results on LCA of polymers and polymer composites are generally consistent, showing that indicators, such as Global Warming Potential and Total Energy Use are, on the whole, lower than those of alternative materials. On the other hand, the economic literature is less abundant and standard methods still need to be adopted, since different economic analysis methods were used in the studies reviewed. Also, as almost all LCC studies exclude externalities (external costs), mainly internal costs are reported herein. Additionally, other methodologies, such as integration of LCA and LCC of plastic products, are seldom addressed in the literature. The overarching conclusion is that polymers and polymer composites usually have economic advantages over conventional materials. As a result of this work it could be concluded that while the LCA methodology seems a stabilized standard method, efforts must still be made to standardize methods and tools on LCC. The work also highlights the interest to integrate in LCC the valorization of the external costs of a product, facilitating the choice between different alternatives.
