The Environmental Impact of Collecting and Processing Abandoned Shopping Trolleys in the UK

Significant numbers of shopping trolleys are taken out of service through abandonment each year, leading to negative environmental, economic, and social impacts. These impacts have been discussed qualitatively in the literature; however, quantitative analysis of the environmental impacts is lacking. We performed a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the manufacturing and subsequent abandonment, collection through diesel vans, and refurbishment of shopping trolleys in the Canley suburban area of Coventry city, UK. We found that manufacturing one shopping trolley had a global warming impact of 65.14 kg CO2 equivalent. The impact of collecting one trolley and returning it to the originating supermarket was 0.69 kg CO2 equivalent. Finally, the impact of transporting and refurbishing one trolley was 5.50 kg CO2 equivalent. These results show the major benefits of either collection or refurbishment over manufacturing new trolleys to replace abandoned ones. An observation is made that one trolley would have to be collected 93 times to offset its own manufacturing impact. The work also highlights the impact of abandonment. An estimated 520,000 abandoned trolleys in the UK every year lead to 343 tons CO2 equivalent through van collection only. If 10% of these trolleys required refurbishment, the impact would increase to 652 tons CO2 equivalent.