The future of packaging

It’s difficult to have a product without a package. Packaging plays a key role in our society, allowing for the transportation, storage, protection, promotion and consumption of a huge range of products. From the most complex structural packaging used to protect computers, to the most minimal such as egg cartons, all packaging serves the same purpose. Today, it’s expected that packaging not only fulfil its many roles, but do it with minimal environmental impacts.

Alternatives to current packaging needs are being taken seriously, especially as packaging is often singled out as among the chief contributors to current environmental problems.   Many of the gains that are being made in sustainable packaging, from cradle to grave, and cradle to cradle, are generally invisible to the average consumer walking along the shop aisle. Manufacturers are evaluating the sustainability impacts and opportunities across the entire lifecycle of their packaging products in order to support cost reductions, reduce negative environmental impacts and make progress towards sustainability.

Equilibrium recently participated in a forum and series of workshops held by the Australian Food and Grocery Council’s (AFGC) as they launched their white paper “The Future of Packaging”.

The white paper is a cooperative and collective response to the key issues and trends facing food, grocery and packaging manufacturers. Its aim is to create tangible actions to improve the sustainability of packaging over the next 5-10 years and shift from ‘end of pipe’ recovery to better designs from the beginning.

While progress in packaging sustainability is being made through initiatives such as light-weighting and improved recyclability, a number of challenges remain:

• The rate of growth in packaging consumption has slowed, however it continues to increase overall (due to increasing population, rising incomes, increased consumption of convenience foods).
• Innovative packaging formats are emerging, however end of life challenges continue (eg. breakage, use of mixed material packaging). Packaging manufacturers are working on innovative ways to create eco-friendly ranges from bio-plastic containers, stretch-wrap, and filling, to natural cellulose foam.  Biodegradable packaging is also being developed, which refers to the ability of a product to be broken down into simpler forms by living organisms, thus reducing its persistence in the environment in its original form, rather than the use of petrochemical plastics that persist in the environment for much longer time frames. However, the use of these new ingredients presents new challenges for recovery and recycling.
• Increased consumer demand for convenience foods brings a requirement for more complex packaging to increase shelf-life.
• Significant changes in the retail sector, with increased imports driven by private labels and the high Australian dollar, is leading to greater diversity in packaging and its end-of-life recovery requirements.
• With an ageing population there is increasing demand for accessible packaging (ie. easy to open and read). Frustration-free packaging is demanded to offset ‘wrap-rage’.
• Food safety continues to grow in importance for many consumers (eg. heavy metals migration into food).
• There is increasing demand for supply chain information and transparency around packaging’s environmental and social impacts.

The AFGC is working to meet these challenges and achieve its stated vision: packaging for food and groceries is designed, manufactured, used and recovered in ways that are socially beneficial and environmentally sustainable.

Shane Gladigau