“Cornstarch production for plastics is in direct competition with food production, and the bottles screwed up the recycling system. Although the company had the best motives, looking at only one element of sustainability disguised the overall consequences of such a strategy. He cites the example of Innocent, which chose to put its smoothies in bottles made from cornstarch. There are many ways to measure the environmental credentials of a product and its packaging, but each one falls short if it is viewed in isolation. It is Carter’s belief that sustainability is a far more complex issue than many retailers think. The whole sector is guilty of looking at things in terms that are too simple,” Carter remarks. “Across the industry there is ignorance about packaging when it becomes waste. There are many different views on what is good and what is bad,” Carter says.ĭenmark, for example, has a more favourable view of flexible packaging because it can be burnt to produce energy, but in the UK and Germany this is not the case. There is additional complexity in that some countries favour incineration as a means of producing energy, while others are less so. “In the UK, for instance, there is an issue with plastic bags, which are seen as terrible by some people as they are not disposed of properly, and there is a similar issue for flexible packaging in Asia, where it is not gathered effectively so becomes a litter problem. Carter sees this as evidence that the company accepts the increasingly important role of flexible packaging, and that such innovations or the use of biodegradable or recyclable materials are defined by what retailers want from their suppliers.įurthermore, he points out that views on flexible packaging are not universally shared, and he suggests that more effort should be made to understand not only the sustainability of such materials in their initial application, but also how they contribute to the environmental impact of the whole product, including their life as waste. Its recent innovations include the adaptation of its flexible packaging for its Saga value brand tea sold in Poland, to which it has added a metallised inner layer, while adding PET to the structure to provide greater strength. “Do you choose a very lightweight packaging plastic that can’t be recycled, or a heavier plastic that can be?” I am not convinced, however, that it is as black and white as using less material,” says Steph Carter, packaging sustainability and functional capability director at Unilever. If there is one issue that is affecting retailer policies at the moment it is lightweighting, which favours flexible packaging. “I suspect that the understanding of sustainability will change in all sectors, including retail, as everyone learns more and understands it better. This perspective considers packaging as one element in the overall environmental profile of a product, to which many other factors contribute. Policies of lightweighting and the use of materials from renewable sources are important in this drive, but there is a growing feeling that these efforts must be viewed in a much broader context.įlexible packaging is a good example of how perceptions can change when companies take a more holistic approach to packaging and its environmental impact. The packaging industry’s response to calls for more sustainable products has been varied, but a growing number of packaging and product companies have taken the bit between their teeth and made a real commitment to reducing the environmental impact of the goods they produce.
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