How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a plastic crate?

Multiply the crate's weight by your polymer supplier's per-kg figure for PP or HDPE. Add the moulding shop's electricity per kg, divided across crates passed, plus any printing and pallet wrap. Polymer is usually most of the total.

Materials

• PP copolymer or HDPE by crate weight.
• Regrind share, which lowers the virgin polymer needed.
• Masterbatch and in-mould labels.

Process

• Injection moulding machines, the largest electricity user.
• Chillers and mould temperature controllers.
• Compressor, grinder and stacking.

Per crate

Give the crate weight with the figure. A returnable crate's footprint per trip is the crate figure divided by the trips it makes.

Worked example: moulding shop per crate (one month)

• Electricity: 120,000 kWh x 0.710 = 85,200 kg CO2
• Crates passed: 200,000
• Plant total: 85,200 / 200,000 = 0.426 kg CO2 per crate
• Add the polymer per crate for the full figure

Inputs are illustrative; use your own bills and production records.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads the plant's electricity bills (CEA grid factor 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, CO2 Baseline Database version 21.0) and fuel invoices (IPCC 2006 defaults) into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, the plant-level input to a per-unit figure. Bought-in materials go to the supplier evidence trail; product reports are self-declared drafts.

• Product carbon footprint calculator
• Injection moulding footprint per kg
• Wooden vs plastic pallet footprint

Sources: GHG Protocol Product Standard, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org), IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0

Last reviewed 2026-10-20.