Natural fibre-based packaging to reduce CO2 emissions
Reducing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by the packaging of food and other consumer products is the goal of the EU funded project SUSTAINPACK. Gone are the days of buying food loose from the local grocers. Today shoppers have to contend with goods which are excessively wrapped in plastic, polystyrene, cling wrap and cardboard, while municipalities have the headache of finding ways to dispose of this packaging. In 2002, around 66 million tonnes of packaging waste were generated in the EU. While some of this waste is recyclable, much of it is incinerated or goes to landfills where it can take centuries to biodegrade. In the UK alone, some 28 million tonnes of waste every year is landfilled, a figure which is expected to double over the next 20 years. Packaging has some other significant environmental impacts. It is estimated that around 80 million tonnes of CO2 are emitted yearly due to packaging consumption, which accounts for 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. The manufacturing and disposal of this packaging also causes air acidification, fine particle dispersion and eutrophication. In an effort to reduce this environmental burden, the SUSTAINPACK project consortium, which involves 36 research institutes, universities and partners from 13 European countries, aims to develop easily degradable, renewable and recyclable fibre-based packaging. These fibres are obtained from natural, sustainable raw materials, such as wood. 'Developing sustainable packaging that can compete effectively with packaging derived from petrochemical-based polymers is extremely challenging,' says Professor Chris Breen of Sheffield Hallam University, one of the project partners. 'Sustainpack is addressing this challenge by creating a European research community focused on sustainable packaging which will pressure retailers to accept natural packaging as the way forward.' One of the project's goals is to increase the dry, moist, and wet strengths of fibre-based packaging materials, enabling the design of more cost-effective packaging by using less material. The target material reduction is 30%. At the UK university for example, work is underway on the design of on nanoclay particles, which are expected to significantly improve the barrier properties and mechanical strength of the new biopolymer films and coatings. 'One of the more unusual modifiers that we are using to make the nanoclays more compatible with, and disperse throughout the biopolymer films, to effectively repel water molecules is a molecule called chitosan which is derived from the shells of crustaceans, such as crabs and lobsters,' explains Prof Breen. The researchers are currently developing some sample packages which they hope to demonstrate to some of the project's industrial partners, which include the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's and Smurfit-Kappa, one of Europe's largest manufacturers of packaging products.