Life Cycle Assessment of fresh dairy packaging at ELOPAK

Nearly all food and drink products require some packaging, and the impact from production and consumption is causing a strain on the environment. To counteract the bad effects, business is emphasizing the environmental performance of products and therefore utilising Life Cycle Assessment as a tool to quantify the environmental impacts from a products life cycle. Elopak, which is an International supplier of paper-based packaging for liquid food, is a such company. This thesis is a Life Cycle Assessment focusing on an Elopak 1-liter beverage carton for fresh milk. The main goal of this study is to quantify the environmental impact in a cradle-to-grave perspective. Also, to point out which life cycle phases that contribute most to impacts and to suggest strategies improving the system environmental performance. The product system is assessed in a European context and the reference time of primary data is set to the year 2015. Materials in the beverage carton consist mainly of liquid packaging board (LPB), and polyethylene (PE) for coating and closure. Important phases which are excluded from this study is retail and consumer activities. Results from this study show an impact of 45 g CO2 -eq for climate change, 57,7 mg P O3 4− -eq for eutrophication, 79,1 mg NMVOC for photochemical oxidant formation and 154,6 mg SO2 -eq for terrestrial acidification. The most contributing life cycle phases prove to be the production of raw materials in primary packaging where the impacts are dominated by the production of LPB and PE resins. Important strategies for improving the environmental performance of the product system is to ensure that raw materials have a low impact. This can be done by choosing environmentally friendly materials such as renewable plastics, reducing its weight and by improving production processes. Additionally, recycling should be encouraged to substitute the production of virgin materials