Sustainability & Functionality at the Heart of Packaging Innovation

You find enclosed my talk entitled: "Sustainability & Functionality at the Heart of Packaging Innovation" given at the Greener Packaging Awards, November 18, 2013 in Brussels, Belgium.

 

Sustainability & Functionality at the Heart of Packaging Innovation from Islem Yezza

Gaspillage alimentaire : L’emballage à la rescousse !

Je vous invite à lire mon article publié dans le dernier numéro de la revue l’Actualité Alimentaire : Gaspillage alimentaire : L’emballage à la rescousse !

Lorsque l’emballage et l’environnement sont évoqués, surgit inévitablement le problème des déchets. Cependant, le problème n’est pas l’emballage en tant que tel, mais le suremballage, un phénomène qui coûte cher au fabricant et agace énormément le client.

Tout le monde semble en effet avoir oublié à quoi sert un emballage. La principale fonction de l'emballage est d’être au service du produit. L’emballage doit conserver et protéger le produit tout au long de la chaîne allant du fabricant au consommateur en passant par le transport et le stockage intermédiaire. Il évite ainsi qu'une partie du produit ne se perde ou ne s'abîme, ce qui impliquerait une perte économique et écologique beaucoup plus importante que celle causée par l'emballage. Un bon emballage constitue aussi une garantie pour la santé et la sécurité des consommateurs. Enfin, l'emballage a encore d'autres fonctions telles que la mise à disposition d'informations, le marketing, la diversification et la présentation des produits en portions adaptées.

Lire la suite…

Nb: N'hésitez pas à me contacter (pak-bec@hotmail.com) si vous voulez consulter l'intégrale de cet article

Packaging Innovation: Bag in Box for Automotive Fluids

Scholle Packaging’s bag-in-box system for automotive chemicals and fluids allows industry suppliers to satisfy their customers’ needs with an efficient, environmentally conscious package. Each bag-in-box packaging system removes 24 one-liter bottles from the waste stream and features superior product evacuation, saving suppliers money and damage to our environment upon disposal into landfills. Overall, petroleum-based resin usage in the packaging is reduced by nearly 90 percent compared to rigid one-liter bottles, reducing impacts to our environment through the manufacture of the packaging system. During shipping, greenhouse gas emissions are overall lower than the incumbent packaging due to more-efficient cube utilization on trucks, in warehouses and at the end-user. The outer carton of the packaging system is also fully recyclable.

Winner in the 2011 AmeriStar

Winner in the 23rd DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation

PackNews of the Week: Bioplastics, BagTheBox, Sustainability Survey and Seven packaging predictions

Bioplastics to pass the one million tonne mark in 2011

Global bioplastics production capacity will more than double from 2010 to 2015. Capacity is predicted to pass the one million tonne mark already in 2011, according to a current study presented today by the industry association European Bioplastics in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Hanover at the interpack trade fair in Dusseldorf.

From a figure of around 700,000 tonnes in 2010, the production capacity for bioplastics will increase to a predicted 1.7 million tonnes by 2015. The current year will see capacity pass an important threshold: the first half of 2011 already shows production capacity exceeding 900,000 tonnes. The million tonne mark is close, and will likely be passed by the bioplastics industry within this year.

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Seven packaging predictions for a resource-strapped future

Tony Kingsbury, executive-in-residence, Center for Responsible Business, UC Berkeley, and an executive with Dow Chemical, shared some of his packaging-related predictions for a resource-scarce future:

1. The most resource-efficient package will win

2. Functionality will be king

3. Keeping the molecule in play will gain momentum

4. Reusables will gain marketshare where it makes systems sense

5. Bio-based packaging materials will grow, but not necessarily biodegradable

6. Transparency will drive societal full-cycle thinking about packages

7. Life-cycle data will increasingly drive material decision-making

Read more…

Malt-O-Meal® Bags The Box!

It takes 345 million pounds of paperboard to make a year's supply of cereal boxes – that's the weight of 734,747 jumbo jets! Through the new Bag The Box™ movement, Malt-O-Meal is out to change the way people think about their breakfast choices, and how products – such as cereal in a box – can affect the environment.

To kick off the program, Malt-O-Meal has launched a website and blog devoted entirely to Bag The Box, where users can view fan-created videos and exchange ideas on sustainable packaging and green initiatives

Read more…

Sustainability Survey Reveals Challenges in Global Packaging Industry

The need to package food, consumer and industrial products in a more sustainable and affordable way dominates the worldwide packaging industry, according to DuPont’s global survey of consumer packaged goods companies and packaging converters.

More than 500 packaging professionals were surveyed and over 40 percent sited sustainability as the toughest challenge while 33 percent named cost as a major factor.

Read more…

  

Papier-mache milk bottle arrives in UK supermarkets

A new environmentally-friendly milk bottle is set to go on sale in supermarkets throughout the UK.

The bottles, which comprises of an outer shell made from recycled paper and a thin plastic liner to store the milk, will be rolled out across all Asda stores after a successful pilot scheme.

The revolutionary outer shell of the green cartons, which look similar to a normal plastic milk bottle, can be recycles again or thrown away and will decompose in a matter of weeks.

An independent lifecycle analysis of the GreenBottle found it had a carbon footprint 48 per cent lower than that of a standard milk bottle.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs predicts that by 2020 half of all milk packaging will be made from recycled materials.

Read more

Malt-O-Meal: Bag the Box, 75% less packaging, 100% “funny”

Bag the Box: funny and sustainable. I like it

Emballage du vin : Le verre meilleur que le plastique

L’Institut des sciences de la vigne et du vin (ISVV), le plus grand centre de recherche et développement sur la vigne et le vin en Europe, vient de publier les résultats mi-parcours d’une étude à l'initiative de l'ISVV, financée par le fabricant de bouteilles Owens-Illinois.

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L’objectif de cette étude était de comparer les caractéristiques organoleptiques du vin dans les différents contenants sur une période de 2 ans :

• Bouteille en verre
• Bouteille en PET Mono
• Bouteille en PET Multi
• Bag-in-box®

L’étude montre globalement une meilleure conservation des vins au fil du temps dans les bouteilles de verre, tant du point de vue des analyses chimiques (entrée d’O2, pertes en CO2 et en SO2), de la couleur des vins ou de la dégustation. Les résultats scientifiques semblent plus probants sur les vins blancs (oxydation marquée dans le plastique) que sur les vins rouges, tandis que la dégustation organisée lors de la présentation de l’étude pouvait sembler plus probante sur les vins rouges (meilleur volume du fruit dans la bouteille en verre) .

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Vous pouvez consulter ici les résultats détaillés de l’étude à 12 mois.

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LCA study puts bag-in-box in good light

Via Food Production Daily

A life cycle assessment (LCA) of the bag-in-box packaging format underlines its strong environmental credentials and endorses it as an alternative to conventional packaging formats for wine and liquid foods, claims a European supplier of this type of packaging

Rapak said that it recently commissioned sustainability consultants PIRA to compile an independent report with the specific aim of assessing and comparing the potential life cycle environmental impacts of bag-in-box technology with alternative liquid packaging formats.

Material weight

The study, claims the company, compared 30 different packaging formats over the range of market categories and considered the weight of packaging raw materials as key in terms of impact on distribution.

“As a responsible packaging producer, we need to be aware of and reduce the environmental impact of our products,” said Jean Paul Roosendaal, sales and marketing director for the company.

The LCA technique incorporates the different stages of a product’s life cycle to assess how ‘green’ a product or packaging material is, including raw material extraction, manufacture, transport and usage through to waste processing and disposal.

An inventory is made of each stage in terms of energy and material consumption as well as emissions released into the environment, to determine a packaging material or product’s carbon footprint.

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Informed decisions

“The PIRA report’s conclusion that bag-in-box systems were ‘environmentally competitive’ and in many cases superior to alternative packaging formats in the categories considered has qualified what has long been felt about this packaging medium,” added Roosendaal.

However, he stressed that the purpose of the LCA was not to prove that one packaging format was better than another - “there are too many variable factors for any pack realistically to be able to take that position,” conceded Roosendaal.

But he said that such a study allows its customers to make informed decisions in the selection of packaging for their particular products, adding environmental considerations alongside factors such as packaging performance and consumer requirements.

According to Rapak, the bag-in-box format generates up to five times less waste than rigid containers, thanks to the fact that empty packs collapse fully to reduce space during disposal and, in addition, the cardboard outer is fully recyclable.

Developments

Rapak added that it was continuing to look at developing bag-in-box materials to offer to food and beverage companies for use across the retail and service industry, with water an increasingly important area.

In this continued push for use of the format with waters, the group said it is targeting specific markets such as Northern European, where it says such products are already widely available in five and ten litre sizes.

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