Monitor and manage

5 October 2010



It will take every possible check and measure to limit the environmental impact of what we produce. Joanne Hunter reports on how the packaging industry is responding.


Life cycle analysis (LCA) has come into its own as a means to identify which are the better options to deliver the products and services we want and need. If wisely applied, LCA will help the packaging chain and brand owners keep on the right track to meet European and global low carbon ambitions, and nurture sustainable businesses.

LCA focuses on the environmental touchpoints of technologies from extracting raw material to disposal of final product, and includes all transportation. The emphasis has so far been on emissions, although water use issues are under scrutiny and linked to energy use through its heating, cooling, treatment and transport.

Importantly, LCA does not cover economic outcomes of choosing one technology or system over another. A carbon footprint calculation is just one aspect of a comprehensive LCA. Carbon labelling is an attempt to communicate a product’s CO2 emissions rating. And eco design is a holistic approach that looks at the environmental performance of the complete product.

Hotly debated are the scope and valid application of the LCA approach and the relevance to consumer choice and behaviour. But progress is being made to make LCA practicable and the data meaningful to decision making.

At a product carbon footprint (PCF) forum in Berlin in March this year, opinions were distinctly polarised between science and application, and the hot debate looked set to keep on a rolling boil. But by May, at a meeting in London, the opinions of academia and consultant experts had clearly converged ‘at a mind-boggling speed’, says Sara Pax, Managing Director at Bluehorse Associates, the creator of Carbonostics, an online web-based tool for analysing the carbon impact of food products.

Carbonostics takes a practical approach to LCA that makes it ‘affordable’ without compromising results, and has been widely adopted. The database covers different carbon emissions with information from public and private sources, and contains information for different ingredients, energy, transport, packaging, storage, consumer use and end of life phases. Auditing ensures data is current, relevant and accurate. “Especially in business settings there is valuable data on where the hot spots are,” says Ms Pax.

In LCA, carbon as a determinant is used as ‘shorthand’ for total emissions and energy. In being able to measure, monitor and manage carbon levels, ‘industry has a lot at stake’, says Ms Pax, adding: “I predict product carbon footprinting is going to happen, but legislation is needed to impose it.”

France has made carbon a starting point, with water use the next target of industry accountability. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Water Disclosure 2010 has called for information from 302 companies from the Global 500 in the sectors seen as water intensive or exposed to particular water related risk. These include packaged foods and meats, personal products, pharmaceuticals, soft drinks and speciality chemicals.

Carbon, and water accounting is forcing companies to measure cradle to grave and beyond their own gate: “It is a measurement exercise that producers have to go through with open eyes and companies may need to rethink their strategies,” says Ms Pax.

In respect of the need for on-pack carbon labelling, Ms Pax is bluntly doubtful: “The consumer is irrelevant and it is foolish to think consumers care.”

Carbonostics further concludes that too much focus is put on packaging as the ‘bad boy’ in environmental terms: “We can shatter assumptions with little effort.”

While this is cheering news for the packaging industry, players in every material sector and product category will be continuing to explore all avenues for low carbon substitutes and the most economic use of resources, examples of which follow.

Paper

The paper sector as a whole sees itself as important to the sustainable future of forests. Packaging up to and including paper labels made from cellulose fibre from wood from properly managed forests claims the benefits of a renewable, recycled, resource saving material.

Forests are the ‘carbon sinks’ of the world and bind significant quantities of carbon. The effect of carbon sequestration and storage goes beyond the lifespan of a tree and into wood and paper based goods.

Paper Labels

Paper labels are not collected separately and channelled towards recycling processes. Although the problem of what to do with spent release liner materials - the carrier for self-adhesive labels - has been solved in a closed-loop European recycling system aiming to relieve landfill sites and optimise the fibre (see Packaging Today August/September). Austrian recycled paper producer Lenzing Papier is the Cycle4Green scheme’s manufacturing partner under CEO Ernst Brunbauer. He says: “Life cycle analyses show the impact on the environment of recycled paper is superior to virgin fibre production. Fewer resources - energy, water and production materials - are needed. However, virgin fibres are needed to maintain a satisfying quality level of recovered fibres.”

A low-carbon producer, Lenzing creates no landfill waste because materials are re-used; and production residues are converted into energy in incineration plants.

Mr Brunbauer says: “Corporate and private consumers are increasingly aware of the importance of environmental matters and do appreciate products that reduce the impact on nature.”

Brigl & Bergmeister (B&B) over recent years has moved energy usage from fossil fuels to hydroelectric and thermal capture systems to become ‘exceptionally low-carbon’ and independent of external suppliers.

To further reduce the carbon footprint, B&B is working to substitute a remaining 5-8% of the pulp (eucalyptus) that comes from South America, by sourcing in Spain and Portugal.

Highly refined papers consist of well over 50% of materials other than cellulose fibres: calcium carbonate, kaoline, binders, varnish, coatings and inks that can contain heavy metals, halogenated hydrocarbons and other persistent chemicals.

Beverage cartons

Recycling beverage cartons lengthens the life of the materials that they contain and reduces the environmental impact as a consequence. According to SIG Combibloc, a recent Europe-wide LCA by the US Institute for Energy and Environment Research suggested cartons could save up to 60% of CO2 emissions compared with other packaging types.

ACE (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment) states that European beverage carton recycling in 2009 stood at an average rate of 34%. Some 34,000 tonnes, or more than 12 billion used beverage cartons, are recycled in paper mills.

Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Norway are recycling at least 50% of all beverage cartons put on the market by the main suppliers (Tetra Pak, SIG Combibloc and Elopak); while the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and the UK are ‘improving’ from their lower start point.

For economically viable recycling systems and better ecological outcomes, Tetra Pak is helping authorities to move to kerbside collection. “It generally offers higher collection and recycling rates,” says Mario Abreu, Director Forestry and Recycling at Tetra Pak.

METALS

European Metal Packaging (EMPAC), the association for rigid metal packaging, has developed a tool for members to calculate the carbon footprint of their products. The ‘computerised scorecard’ will estimate CO2 equivalent levels for cans with different recycling rates, weights and transport distances, and it tracks carbon emissions from the mining of raw materials to the delivery of cans to customers. The system created by The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) can be updated with new carbon data from transport, recycling and lightweighting.

Can production

Ball Packaging Europe’s ‘zero waste to landfill’ project is helping to cut waste and pollution at its UK plant in Rugby. Resource-saving activities include, for example, its key customer Britvic, whose plant next door is connected by a tunnel and pallets are delivered on a conveyor system, saving transport movements.

Ball has spent £2.4 million reining back carbon emissions and taking out unnecessary volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It has implemented controls t achieve a 2% fall in water use and 7.5% less electricity.

Meanwhile, the steel industry is working to meet a 50% reduction target in CO2 emissions through Ultra–Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking (ULCOS).

Jean-Pierre Birat, General Co-ordinator for the ULCOS consortium of 48 European companies and organisations, says: “It is very important that we find an answe to making steel in the most sustainable way.”

The ULCOS Blast Furnace is 10 years away from implementation because of the huge plant investments it requires. A pilot plant in Germany that is being constructed 2010-14 will pioneer the technology using top gas recycling with carbon capture and storage. Another industrial demonstrator in France will run at full industrial scale 2011-2015.

Aluminium

Around 75% of all aluminium ever made has been in the metal loop since the year 1888. The material represents a ‘virtually perfect reprocessing and production cycle’, says the German Association of the Aluminium Industry (GDA).

Stefan Glimm, of the GDA, comments: “Instead of chasing after simple recycling messages and promoting ecologically questionable indicators such as ‘recycled metal content’ or ‘made from 100% recycled aluminium’, the aluminium industry pleads the case that the material loop should be closed further still to promote greater sustainability in the production and consumption of the metal.

“Ultimately, it also ensures that the aluminium industry and its customers retain their credibility by actively supporting ecological processes. This should be our common goal,” states Mr Glimm.

PLASTICS

A recent Campden BRI report, Biodegradable and compostable packaging materials for foodstuffs, states: “Many LCAs have been completed on biodegradable polymers, but their conclusions vary due to their different goals and scopes.” The reason is the use of different process technologies, energy sources and end of life options. The authors, D. Cava and A. Campbell, say it needs a comparative LCA on all the options to find the most environmentally friendly one.

In 2008 an LCA of PLA (poly lactic acid) material by NatureWorks showed it took less energy to produce, and part fuelling the process with wind energy was said to produce material with negative GHG emissions. In the same year cellulose based Natureflex by Innovia Films also claimed zero carbon status.

A European report in 2005 concluded that by 2020 any reduction in energy consumed from the introduction of bio-based polymers will be less than 2.1%. But Campden BRI observes: “Higher oil prices will tend to drive development and market use, leading to greater energy savings and carbon footprint reduction.”

But the promised benefits of bioplastics will come only if waste management systems are updated, experts say. Lack of a national waste strategy is holding back the use of bio plastic food packaging in the UK, thinks John Horwood, Food Contact Materials Chairman of the UK Food and Drink Federation (FDF).

“There is a huge array of new bioplastics coming on stream,” states Malcolm Harold, of the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network. “The EU bioplastics market is expected to grow by 30% annually. There are tax incentives for bioplastics in Germany and more incentives on the way in France.”

But a sticking point for uptake is not performance but price: conventional plastics are €1-1.5/kg and bioplastics are €3-8/kg. He recommends companies to follow the ISO 14021 green claims guide to avoid ‘green washing’.

GLASS

The North American glass container industry has recently produced the ‘first complete and thorough’ cradle-to-cradle LCA ever conducted for the industry. This ‘benchmark’ LCA was co-ordinated by the Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), which says it confirms the positive environmental impact of glass packaging and recycling.

At corporate level, O-I undertook an LCA comparing glass with aluminum and PET. Although the results suggested that glass has the smaller carbon footprint, ‘we see room for improvement’, says Al Stroucken, the company’s CEO.

By 2017, from a 2007 baseline, O-I is aiming to cut its global energy needs by 50%; reduce CO2-equivalent emissions by 65%; and to nearly double its use o frecycled glass to a global average of 60% per container.

Lowering some bottle weights has already cut energy usage by 8% in the past three years.

Every 10% of recycled glass used in production cuts carbon emissions by an estimated 5% and saves 3% in energy. But O-I concedes that recycling goals will depend on improvements to recycling systems.

Internal environmental investment cannot be postponed by a business looking to its long term future. A £15 million revamp of Stoelzle Flaconnage’s UK plant in Knottingley has produced the premium spirits and personal care division flagship of the Austria based Stoelzle Glass Group. Increasing industry regulation has meant that a substantial amount of this investment was focused on environmental compliance.

Johannes Schick, CEO and Chairman of STF, says: “Financially, compliance can hurt us when compared with India, China and Russia. We are facing tighter EU-wide control of industrial emissions, including Phase III of the carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), which is coming in 2013.” Readers can go to www.decc.gov.uk for full details on ETS implications for the European industry.

Industrial packaging

For industrial packaging, a collection and re-use infrastructure is in place on an international level with genuine, associated environmental benefits, says Phil Pease, CEO of the Industrial Packaging Association (UK), a qualified Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser and Chartered Environmentalist.

“The reconditioning of steel and plastics drums requires a very small amount of energy compared with the destruction and melting processes required for recycling.” Further, the reconditioning process takes place under one roof, while recycling will be carried out across several locations with significantly higher transport and energy requirements.

Having been reconditioned a number of times, a package can be finally cleaned and recycled for materials recovery.

Environmental analysts at Franklin Associates in the USA and the US Reusable Industrial Packaging Association (RIPA) compared the results of reconditioning large (185 to 220 litre) steel drums and recycling them. Their ‘carbon calculator’ has become the industry guide for steel drums, available on RIPA’s website.

As for fibreboard drums made from kraft fibre from sustainable forests, says Mr Pease: “The young growing trees cultivated to produce kraft fibres are much more active in the absorption of carbon and production of oxygen than established natural forests which are critical for bio-diversity and ecology, and not used in industrial packaging”.


SIG Combibloc’s one-litre aseptic liquid food carton made from new EcoPlus composite board is 28% lower in CO2 confirms an LCA by Germany’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU). SIG Aluminium represents a ‘virtually perfect reprocessing and production cycle’. Aluminium

Aluminium Aluminium
SIG SIG


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