Preventing environmental impacts of food products by packaging

A toolbox is being developed in the FutupackEKO2010 project to support packaging and product designers, when assessing environmental impacts of the entire value chain of the food product. One main rationale of the project is to minimise environmental impacts of food products by suitable packaging. The primary aim of the project is to find packaging solutions that will decrease the total environmental impacts of packed products without compromising on other basic functions of the packaging. Environmental impacts of three food products (bread, ham, Soygurt drink) and corresponding packaging alternatives and their recovery options are assessed by LCA in separate case studies. One unique element within these case studies is a consumer survey on the amounts of food waste of the selected product groups generated at households, as a function of different sizes of packaging. The results of our study show that the amount of foodwaste can be a dominating factor when comparing environmental impacts of different food packaging solution