Reduced environmental impact of capsules for coffee, tea and chocolate : with respect to materials and design

During the spring semester of 2012 did Petra Hollsten independently a thesis on reducing the environmental impact of capsule for coffee, tea and chocolate. The work was performed at Karlstad University, Faculty of Technology and Science under the Bachelor of Science program in innovation, technology and design. The project's scope is at 22.5 points. The employment for this project is the company Löfbergs Lila AB in Karlstad. Supervisor at the Principal has been Maria Herou Wallner and Sandra Lyxell, product managers. Supervisor at Karlstad University is Monica Jakobsson, lecturer and program leader for innovation and design engineering program. Examiner is Fredrik Thuvander, lecturer and professor at Karlstad University. The company Löfbergs Lila is a family business and one of the leading suppliers of coffee in Sweden that invests in quality from plantation to consumer and environmental responsibility. Sales of capsules and capsule machines are increasing very rapidly and have become very popular. The company's move to the bridge method with capsule machines must be good for the environment as possible. Which gave rise to this project to help reduce the environmental impact of the capsules? The largest part of the project was to conduct a thorough research to determine important characteristics about coffee, how the market looks for the capsules, how the capsule and the capsule machine works, the climate impact of packaging and coffee, how to evaluate environmental impact and a materials study. That is partly conducted through field visits, literature searches, and retrieval of information by providers. The result of the project was to reduce environmental impact by replacing the capsule existing materials to alternative renewable materials. To evaluate the alternative materials used tool ECO Audit Tool contained in material selection program CES EduPack 2011. Through the tool, you can read energy consumption and carbon emissions. It resulted in which material that had the lowest environmental impact. Along with the choice of material was sketched a proposal for a new design on the sleeve capsule which would lead to moving a function from capsule to capsule sleeve. This would reduce one part of the capsule and has less environmental impact and facilitate recycling for consumers