Circular solutions for food packaging. Innovative coated paper packaging and its carbon footprint

Abstract

Purpose: The strive towards circularity within the packaging sector has been an ever-growing challenge. Regular paper seem to be a good solution due to its natural and renewable origins and relative ease in its end-of-life processing. Food products require defined barrier and mechanical properties and seal functions that cannot be provided by regular paper or cardboard. The underlying objective of the paper is to indicate the best scenarios with regard to circularity challenge. Possibly, the implementation of innovative, highly functional, and recyclable coated paper/cardboard materials for food packaging applications would allow to replace traditional multi-layered plastics. Design/methodology/approach: The objective of the paper is to verify the environmental performance of selected coated paper material over its counterparts from multi-layered plastics with the use of the Carbon Footprint approach (CF). CF is used to compare the environmental impacts of a chocolate tablet life cycle with the use of different packaging materials: coated paper (CPCS) and oriented polypropylene (oPP). A special focus is on the recyclability issue of the packaging materials and their contribution to overall environmental performance. Findings: The results show that CPCS packaging has a slightly lower CF. Overall, CPCS packaging is contributing half of CF in comparison to oPP packaging. The difference is higher as far as packaging manufacturing is concerned, but due to the higher weight of CPCS packaging for chocolate tablets, its contribution to CF in whole life cycle rises. Research limitations/implications: Since the assessment is made during the packaging testing process, its results are not yet final and could be due to change if the composition of CPCS will due to some further changes. Secondly, the shelf life tests are not finished yet and do not impact the life cycle so far. Originality/value: The study is focused on the assessment of innovative coated paper packaging and investigates its CF in comparison to currently used packaging material for chocolate tablets. Its results could contribute to the selection of more sustainable and circular packaging. Keywords: coated paper materials, food packaging, carbon footprint (CF), circular economy, life cycle management. Category of the paper: research paper.