Realizing the End-of-life Considerations in the Design of Food Packaging

Abstract

Inefficient collaboration between design and waste management is one of the primary reasons for increasing accumulation of packaging waste. Regarding the food-pack combination, the focus of packaging research is on food preservation as the environmental impact of discarded food is comparatively more than that of its packaging. Despite numerous research and development in the field of food packaging, the resulting designs normally perform as ‘envisioned’ until the product consumption stage, and its performance during actual end-of-life stages differs than the design predictions. The reason being that the regional factors and stakeholders for a waste management setup vary from case to case, that has not been considered yet during the design stage. The food packaging design process has the potential to assist designers in applying the latest research and developments to the practical implementation. However, food packaging design to facilitate material recovery with varying waste management considerations have not been addressed till date. In this work, the food packaging design process and the important factors that influence the design team while generating packaging designs, are studied. Further, the contextual end-of-life issues are categorically analyzed regarding food packaging design process and the emerging opportunities are explored. The necessary design and research strategies to facilitate contextual end-of-life considerations in the food packaging design process, are also proposed.