Page 48 - Packaging News Mar-Apr 2020

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BEVERAGE PACKAGING | www.packagingnews.com.au | March-April 2020
Lighten up
Against the backdrop of growing anti-plastic sentiment, there’s a strong argument for using lightweight plastic packaging for beverages and liquid food products, especially when taking a life-cycle view.
70 per cent when switching from another packaging type to ours.
“We help our customers to make well-founded decisions by being transparent about our packaging system’s total carbon footprint. Brand owners using lightweight packaging are not only reporting cost savings but also an improved environmental profile, brand image and company reputation among other benefits.”
One such customer is New Zealand dairy processor Tatua. “Replacing approximately a third of our plastic use with innovative natural miner- als like chalk is a small yet signifi- cant step in the right direction,” says Susanne Rolfe, Tatua GM marketing and sales. “We’re the first company in New Zealand to use Ecolean asep- tic packaging, and it has been approved for soft plastic recycling.”
RECYCLING A PREREQUISITE FOR SUSTAINABLE PLASTIC USE
Since systems for plastic recycling are inadequate in some markets, Ecolean has a role in driving this development forward and is part of local recycling initiatives to make recycling possible in more markets.
“According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, only 14 per cent of plas- tics are recycled in the world today. As Australia and New Zealand dem- onstrate similar figures, customers in this area have asked if we can cre- ate solutions to solving this prob- lem,” Sajland says.
Ecolean and its customers have joined REDcycle and Soft Plastics Recycling Initiative in Australia and New Zealand.
Sajland explains that through the two projects, companies from differ- ent sections of the value chain have joined forces to create recycling sys- tems for flexible packaging, which is something that the kerbside collec- tion systems do not offer.
“The flexible packages, through these initiatives, are collected in supermarkets and then sent to local recycling sites. No need for shipping the waste to other continents,” Sajland says.
“Valuable materials wasted is a global environmental problem,”
MOST food packaging today – whether it is plastic, paper, or metal – contains plastic components in some form or another. Using plastics for liquid food packaging has numerous benefits. Plastic
is lightweight, tough, durable, affordable, and versatile. It has excellent barrier and thus food safety properties. Plastics are light in weight, enabling reduced raw material use in specific applica- tions. This, in turn, results in a low carbon footprint without com- promising consumer safety or convenience.
While plastic has come under fire for its visibility in the waste stream, the solution, many experts agree, is not to ban plastics. The solution is to increase the value of plastic and to promote recycling and proper waste management.
A LIFE-CYCLE PERSPECTIVE
Ecolean, a supplier of lightweight packaging solutions, promotes look- ing at plastics with a life-cycle per- spective. The company has partially replaced plastic with chalk – up to 35 per cent in the Ecolean Air and Ecolean Air Aseptic packaging ranges. Chalk has a low climate impact, and it gives the company’s lightweight
package its strength, stiffness, and a smooth, white surface, ideal for vibrant printed graphics.
A life-cycle perspective can help the beverage industry focus on the entire environmental impact of packaging, says Ecolean. The com- pany argues that looking only at the end-of-life part of the packaging life cycle might result in brand owners choosing packaging with a larger total environmental impact.
Johnny Sajland, global sales direc- tor at Ecolean Group, says “Customers come to us for lightweight packaging solutions, helping them to further reduce their environmental foot- print. We have customers promoting a decrease of plastics use of up to
Helping create recycling systems
for flexible packaging in local markets is a key pillar of Ecolean’s sustainability approach.
Replacing approximately
a third of our plastic use with innovative natural minerals... is
a significant step in the right direction.”
— Susanne Rolfe, Tatua