As in previous issues S Chidambar continues to write about various aspects of sustainable packaging and the intricate framework of issues that go with it.
Unfortunately, a lot of incorrect notions still abound, helped in no small measure
bymany different reports and claims or counter-claims published by awide
variety of people or organisations, each with different axes to grind, all intent
on saying, a la Jack Horner, “what a good boy I am”. Everybody but everybody
is bursting his guts to announce how good and responsible a corporate citizen and“green” he is and how many barrels of oil he’s saved or how many cars he’s taken off
the road. Many of these claims are misleading or exaggerated. A lot of confusion certainly exists on what really constitutes
sustainability in packaging. Thiswrite-up
is an attempt to explain the basics involved
though itmust be admitted that thewhole
mélange of issues is aggravatingly complex
and beset with contradictions and
conflicts of interest between different fundamental
objectives.
Defining sustainability
Let us start by trying to define what
“sustainability” really means in the context
of the environment. According to the
dictionary, theword sustainability comes
fromthe verb “to sustain”, which has two
important meanings:
– to strengthen or support.
– to keep something going over time or
continuously.
Sustainability is now associated with
evaluation of a process or technology and,
as it happens, it actually encompasses
both of the definitions listed above.On the
one hand, it must strengthen or support
the environment and, on the other, itmust
keep it going over time or, preferably, continuously.
To put it another andmore practicalway,
sustainability of a technology or
process is the concept of using it tomeet
the needs of ‘today’ without in any way
compromising the interests of future generations
or the ‘tomorrow’. It is the latter
part of this statement that has to be treated
as the inviolable bottomline. (Wewill see as we go along that the whole issue of sustainability actually relates to much more
than just the environment itself.)
Based on this,we can lay down the two essential requirements of a sustainable technology
or process as follows:
– Itmust not impose any burdens on the environment or onmaterial resources,whether
renewable or non-renewable.
– It must not cause any deterioration in their quality or availability.
Addressing the concerns
We need to first list the major concerns that have to be addressed. Many of the concerns
are inter-dependent. The first group of concerns have to dowith natural resources
and the fact that some of the key ones are either non-renewable or, for all practical purposes,
rendered thus because the renewal process takes up inordinate time. These
include:
– Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas).
– Various minerals (e.g. metallic ores and industrial raw materials).
Many other man-made resources are also concerns either because they are scarce
or in short supply (like energy) or because existing infrastructure is inadequate or under
strain. The latter usually becomes more of a constraint in poor and developing countries,
which unfortunately constitute a major part of the world.
There are a number of concerns that relate to the environment, as we know it. The
important ones are:
– Quality of the environment and the need to protect it from pollution (atmospheric,
water, soil).
– Water, especially fresh water and ground water tables. Many people do not appreciate
the acute scarcity of this resource.
– Forest cover and land use.
– Global warming and climate change.
– Ozone depletion.
– Preservation of all living species and plant life and protection of their habitats and
natural food chains.
There are also some human activities that impact on the environment. In the context
of packaging, themost important of these is the generation of post-consumerwaste
and the management of its collection and disposal.
Some guidelines
Given that these concerns need hardly be emphasised often enough, the simplest
approach to sustainability is to try and lay down some basic guidelineswhichwill form
the basis for formulating an ideal and workable strategy. Some of these may be simplistic
but, nevertheless, need to be stated so that nothing is overlooked. In no particular
order of priority, we could list these guidelines as follows:
– Preserve the quality of the environment at all costs.
– Prevent depletion of resources, both natural and man-made.
– Conserve and/or reduce energy usage and constantly work at improving energy efficiency.
– Reduce waste, both during productive processes and post-consumer.
– Use renewable and recyclable or reusable materials/systems.
– Use cleaner and greener processes.
– Safely recover all materials. This includes biological means, if necessary.
– Avoid or reduce greenhouse emissions.
One can see that, unfortunately, some of these objectives are in conflict with others.
Let us take an example to illustrate this, drawing upon a standard packaging operation
viz. printing.World-wide, there is amove towards using water-based inks in place
of solvent-based systems because they are greener, safer to handle and cause no VOC
emissions into the atmosphere. The downside of this is that water-based inks are
muchmore difficult to dry and needmuch higher energy for the purpose. There is, thus,
a clear conflict of interest. Another thing that has to be kept inmind, and this is unfortunately
a vital criterion in the practical world, is that what one does has to be economically
viable and cannot end up being less cost-effective than the process one is
trying to replace ormodify. This iswhywe
need to devise a scientific, analytical and
quantitative approach to sustainability
instead of going by notions or instincts.
As we will see later, this is the reason for
developing a ‘score-card’ system that
accounts for both the positives and the
negatives of a process with the ultimate
objective that all technologies or
processes must be burden-neutral.
Having come this far, let us now see if
it is possible to generate a definition of
what constitutes Sustainable Packaging.
A lot of work is still being done to arrive
at such a definition but the most definitive
work on this has been carried out by
the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an
industry-wide coalition in the USA. They
have developed a set of criteria that could
form the basis of a universal acceptance
ofwhat is sustainable packaging. According
to the SPC, sustainable packaging:
– Is beneficial, safe and healthy for individuals
and communities throughout
its life cycle.
– Meets market criteria for performance
and cost.
– Is sourced, manufactured, transported
and recycled using renewable energy.
– Maximises the use of renewable recycled
source materials.
– Is manufactured using clean production
technologies and best practices.
– Is made from materials healthy in all
probable end of life scenarios.
– Is physically designed to optimisematerials
and energy.
– Is effectively recovered and utilised in
biological and/or industrial cradle to
cradle cycles.
Hierarchy of options
People have tried to develop a hierarchy
of options in packaging design for sustainability
and this keeps changing and
evolving all the time. For a long time,
people used the 3-R (reduce, reuse, recycle)
system as the guiding principle and
it seemed good enough. However, over
the last few years, people have realised
that there ismore to it than just the three
R’s. This has now beenmodified to 5 R’s.
The highest position in the hierarchy is
now“remove”. In otherwords, the first priority
is to remove any unnecessary or
extraneous components of the packaging
and cut down on parts that are not
really required, e.g. secondary or tertiary“layers” that are not really needed. The
fifth R stands for “renewor recover”. This
means that, in case it is not possible to
either reuse or recycle the packaging,
then it must be renewed or the inputs recovered to eithermake it suitable for use in a new application or to ensure that some
of the input “burden” is negated to the extent possible and some value recovered. This
latter option includes incineration to recover energy although one would exercise this
option only as a last resort when absolutely nothing else can be done with the waste.
Walmart, one of the leading drivers in the sustainable packagingmovement, go even
further. They follow what they call their 7-R philosophy, in which they add twomore R’s
to the five listed above – “revenue” and “read”. The first implies that not only does sustainable
packaging help protect the environment and conserve scarce resources, itmakes
outstanding economic sense as all suchmeasures lead to only one thing –money saved!
This is as powerful an incentive as any. They also stress “read” as the way to keep oneself
abreast and to educate and share/exchange information with systempartners and
other people to keep taking the process forward.
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