Sustainable Packaging:

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Sustainable Packaging

• An Initial Exploration of Metrics, Standards and
  Best Practices for the Plastic Film Industry

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Towards Sustainable Packaging Outline Metrics,
Standards and Best Practices for the Plastic Film
Industry

• Why Focus on the Sustainability of Packaging?
• Conceptual Background
• Project Goals
• Present State of Packaging
• Present State of Plastics Packaging and
  Manufacturing
• Project Focus Plastic Film
• Addressing the Ecological Impacts of Plastics
  Packaging Manufacturing
• Addressing the Ecological Impacts of Other
  Packaging Manufacturing
• Primary Challenges for Change
• Towards Sustainable Packaging

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Introduction

• The focus of this research project is to
  determine the best methods for improving the
  sustainability of the packaging industry. Of
  particular interest is the establishment of
  measure for sustainable manufacturing (metrics,
  best practices, standards/performance measures),
  and manufacturing processes (resource reduction,
  material improvement/substitution).

• Work will be carried out by defining metrics for
  sustainable manufacturing, analyzing
  manufacturing processes, and ascertaining policy
  and standardization issues. Finding will be
  assessed, and put into practice on the extruding
  and converting industry, which is responsible for
  the manufacturing of plastic film and bags. It
  is anticipated that the results of this work will
  be pertinent to the production of packaging as a
  whole, and will extend beyond into related
  industries.

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I Why Focus on the Sustainability of Packaging?

• Increasing public concern over packaging
• Issues with packaging
• Focus by industry
• Environmental laws/regulations focusing on
  packaging
• NGOs campaigns with implications for packaging
• Benefits of packaging will lead to continued use
• There are business advantages to making
  packaging sustainable
•    

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Issues with Packaging

• Climate Change
• Associated with the green house gas intensity of
  product manufacturing

• Natural Resource Depletion
• Scarcity of raw materials, many of which are used
  in the production of plastics, such as oil,
  natural gas, coal, and agriculture.

• Waste Creation
• Issues of capacity for garbage disposal

• Pollution
• With decreasing capacity for waste disposal,
  trash ends up contaminating ecosystems, such as
  waterways.

• Dangers to Human Health
• Concerns over the toxicity of different source
  materials

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Focus by industry to make packaging more
sustainable

• Packaging Industry Organizations with Concerns
  for sustainability
• Sustainable Packaging Coalition
• The Sustainable Packaging Alliance
• Beverage Packaging Environment Council (BPEC)
• The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers
• National Association for PET Container Resources
• Flexible Packaging Association
• Glass Packaging Institute
• The Packaging Association of Canada
• The European Organization for Packaging and the
  Environment (EUROPEN)
• Packaging Purchasers Pressure for Greener
  Packaging
• Many producers are expressing increased interest
  in making all aspects of their products more
  eco-friendly
• Retailers such as Wal-Mart score card

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NGOs Campaigns with implications for packaging

• Studies on the impact of plastics on the
  environment
• Measures to protect certain species or habitats
• Advocating against waste generation
• Partnerships with producers and retailers to
  green their business
• Demanding the restriction of the use of certain
  materials in packaging

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packaging use will continue to grow, because of
its advantages
Packaging can decrease waste by providing
protection to increase products usefulness, and
decreasing the disposal of merchandise not fit
for consumption.

• Packaging protects products to increase their
  lifespan, and decrease disposal due to spoilage.
• products protected from exposure to air,
  moisture, tampering, contamination, corrosion,
  pest infestation, and extreme temperatures

• Packaging increases appeal of items to consumer
  resulting in less stock going unsold.
• items are perceived to be protected, fresher,
  newer, or just generally more aesthetically
  appealing to the buyer

• Packaging protect products during transport thus
  minimizing disposal due to damage.
• bundling products decreases mishandling during
  shipping, while padding shields products that are
  subjected to rough conditions

• Packaging increases the lifespan of items,
  thereby reducing long-term disposal rates
• tradeoff of increased short-term investments
  (monetary, environmental, etc.) may increase the
  reuse of materials, resulting in less disposed
  over the long run.

• Packaging provides information to the consumer
  about the product.
• labels convey important information about items
  being sold, including proper use, warnings and
  restrictions, expiration date, and the
  appropriate disposal options

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Business Motivations Advantages of a Sustainable
Industry

• Communications
• Improves company image
• Voluntary action may mitigate some political and
  regulatory costs

• Finance
• Attract investors interested in industries with
  reduced risk or those that will be advantageous
  in carbon markets.

• Human Resources
• Attract and retain the best employees. Improve
  health, moral and productivity.

• Marketing
• Improve the company/brand image
• Increase customer satisfaction and support

• Operations
• Reduces operating costs by minimizing the waste
  of inputs (such as materials, labor, and energy)
  . These strategies can be applied to buildings,
  manufacturing or everyday travel.

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II Conceptual Background

• Sustainability
• Sustainable Packaging
• Sustainable Packaging Lifecycle
•    

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Conceptual Background Sustainability
able to be maintained
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es/sustainability-venn-sm.jpg
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Conceptual Background Sustainable Packaging

• In North America, the Sustainable Packaging
  Coalitions definition has gained wide
  acceptance.
• This definition
• Was created with stakeholder input
• Examines packing performance over its full
  lifecycle (rather than emphasizing certain
  segments of the process)
• Addresses packagings function and purpose
• Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative also
  created a definition
• This definition places greater emphasis on the
  packaging materials state at the end of its
  life.
• Still another definition is available from the
  Australian Sustainable Packaging Alliance.
• This definition is more suggestive than the SPCs
  definition. Some critics feel that this is an
  advantage because focusing on the use of
  renewable energy as one of many potential
  optimization strategy does more to encourage
  innovation than the SPCs more prescriptive
  approach Five Winds.

Sustainable Packaging Coalition
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The Packaging Lifecycle
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The Packaging Lifecycle
Sustainable
v
(Only if safe and beneficial for the ecosystem)
Minimized
These processes are maximized
All processes are designed to optimize the inputs
and outputs in order to benefit the needs of
the environment, communities, individuals and
businesses
Inputs include clean environments, production
techniques, and consumables (renewable energy
and non toxic materials). Outputs Include safe
healthy biproducts
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III Goals

• Presentation Goals
• Future Project Goals
•    

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Presentation goals

• This presentation aims to provide an initial
  review of existing methodologies and metrics
  associated with the manufacture of plastics
  packaging and the industry's strives to address
  the ecological issues associated with the current
  industrial state.
• It begins by examining the present state of
  plastics packaging and manufacturing, and
  compares the metrics and methodologies associated
  with the manufacturing of plastics packaging with
  those of other manufacturing sectors (e.g. paper,
  oil, glass, metals).
• Finally, an explanation of why the current
  measures are not sufficient is provided, and
  available principles, methods, and metrics are
  briefly explored.
• This study is meant to support the search for
  suitable metrics towards a workable measure of
  sustainable manufacturing.

Some Key Information Needs for Evaluating the
Sustainability Attributes of Packaging
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Project goals

• Determine effective and appropriate metrics for
  sustainable manufacturing by
• Determining the goal of the assessment, that is,
  which sustainability concerns are of importance
  and should serve as a basis for metric selection
• Determining the scope of the assessment and
  whether the focus should be on the processing
  machine scale, line scale, factory scale, or
  supply chain scale
• Determining the geographic scope of the
  assessment by determining criteria for metric
  selection (for instance greenhouse gas emissions
  are global in impact whereas electricity supply
  is scarce in one location)
• Choosing a metric type from the categories of
  sustainable measure, namely, basic environmental
  impact, comparative environmental impact,
  sustainable use of renewable resources, and the
  sustainable use of non-renewable resources.
• Analysis of manufacturing processes
• Define a standardized life cycle assessment
  methodology for the packaging industry by
  determining what aspects make a significant
  impact, and thus are of importance.
• Policy and standardization issues
• In addition to technical standards, our research
  will consider the inducements and barriers to the
  take-up of these practices within business. The
  focus on policy will be directed at the
  effectiveness of voluntary environmental
  programs (VEP), in particular the accreditation
  program of the California Film Extruders and
  Converters Association (CFECA), known as the
  Environmentally-Preferred Rating (EPR),