CHE5055 M Crawcour research proposal 28 April 2010

1Environmental & Process Systems Engineering GroupUniversity of Cape Town

1

Packaging and sustainabil i ty:

a case study of a l iquid paperboard

pack

CHE5055ZBy Megan Crawcour

CRWMEG001


Contents Page• Abbreviations• Background - packaging waste &

sustainability• The literature• The objectives• Key Questions• Research Approach• Completion of the project• References


Abbreviations of signif icance

AHP – Analytical Hierarchy ProcessFBI – Food and Beverage IndustryCF – Carbon FootprintECR – Efficient Consumer ResponseEE – Eco-efficiencyEF – Ecological FootprintEPR – Extended producer ResponsibilityEoL – End of Life EUROPEN – European Organization for Packaging and the EnvironmentHDPE – High density polyethyleneLCA – Life Cycle AssessmentLCI – Life Cycle InventoryLCIA – Life Cycle Impact AssessmentMSW – Municipal solid waste


Packaging waste

• Packaging waste varies from 17 – 36 % of municipal solid waste (MSW) (OECD 2007)

• Dependant - country & affluence of citizen• Sorting and kerbside collection reduces waste

to landfill


Packaging waste by four materials

% of MSW in Durban

Paper Plastic Glass Metal

SA Affluent 20 6 10 4

SA Informal 13 7 2 3

(Trois and Simelane 2010)


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Liquid Paperboard

Outer layer

Outer layer

a b

(© IPSA 2005)

PE

Paper

PE

Tetra-pak carton

PE

PE

PaperSurlyn

Surlyn

Al foil

Beverage carton


Problem formulation

• Large quantities of packaging waste are landfilled

• Can the effect of landfilling be measured using an academic tool?

• Are there any end of life scenarios that could be undertaken to reduce the effect?– Recycling rate


Key questions

• Which tools would you use to measure sustainability?• What will the tools indicate?• How will you identify hotspots in the beverage carton

manufacture (incl. transport)?

• What is the maximum anticipated recycling ratio for the beverage carton in South Africa?

• Do the annual reports of packaging companies, differentiate the three pillars of sustainability?


Literature Review

The three sections:• Packaging and sustainability• Selection of Tools • Relevant articles for each tool


Sustainable packaging?Or packaging and sustainabil ity?

• Packaging and sustainability (ECR and EUROPEN 2009)

– Refrain from using term ‘sustainable packaging’

• Australian’s Sustainable Packaging Alliance (SPA) (Lewis et al 2010)

• US based Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC)

• Sustainable packaging = recyclable (Robertson 2009)


Previous tools under consideration

• LCA + AHP + EF

Tools under consideration at present

• LCA – on beverage pack • Eco-eff iciency - Food & Beverage Industry


Tools selected

• Life Cycle Assessment • (LCA)• Level 4 • Four step process• Formalised ISO 14040’s• Commercial Software & Databases & Impact Assessment• Expensive, time

• Eco-eff iciency • (EE)• Level 2• Six step process• Less formalised• Software: Spreadsheets

• Direct Savings in ZAR• Easier to implement


Attributional versus Consequential LCA Guinée et al 2002 and Weidema 2003 (as cited in Thomassen et al 2008)

Type Attr ibutional(ALCA)

Consequential(CLCA)

Data Average historical Marginal future

Co-product allocation

Frequently used Never used

Baumann and Tillman (2004)

Accounting type

Change orientated

Baumann and Tillman (2004)

Comparative and retrospective

Comparative and prospective


Key findings: LCA

• Decide that study is ALCA (Thomasen et al 2008)

• Description of LCIA method – EcoIndicator 99– (Banar and Cokaygil 2008 and Tan and Khoo 2005)

• Description of Impacts (Tan and Khoo 2005) – Climate change, acidification and eutrophication, – ecotoxicity, fossil fuels, respiratory inorganics

• Description of beverage pack:– Construction, with closure and shelf life


Key findings: LCA

• Geographic location and origin of data (Huang and Ma 2004)

– in Taiwan HDPE better than two LPB but use European data.

• “European data in general lead to much higher environmental impacts than the Brazilian data” (De Eicker at al (2010)

• Local various published LCAs undertaken on mining, metal, coal

• Local relevant paper on paper & plastic bags (Sevitz 2003)

– paper production: European and US data– Transportation: vague– Electricity and energy: local data


Food & Beverage Industry: EE

• Eco-efficiency indicators (EEI) = Production value (Maxime et al 2006) Environmental influence

• EE =Monetary Value Added (Burritt and Saka 2006)

Environmental impact added

• Eco-efficiency packaging efficiency in Norway. Material efficiency as “measurements of packaging consumption per 1000 NOK turnover in companies adjusted for changing in the total consumer index price” (Hanssen et al 2003)

• Queensland food companies underwent Eco-efficiency study – – five of the companies found savings in costs with respect to water,

energy, waste disposal and chemical purchasing (Pagan and Prasad 2006)


Objectives

• To promote the use of sustainable development tools in the South African packaging industry

• To investigate a Life Cycle Assessment on a liquid paperboard pack

• To investigate the use of eco-efficiency indicators to describe at least one production or transport process

• To identify any hotspots in the production of the liquid paperboard pack (use tools to measure)

• To assess the End of Life (EoL) scenarios for the liquid paperboard pack in South Africa, mainly through increasing the recycling rate

• To assess the level of sustainability knowledge of ten packaging companies


Research Approach

• Completed: Initial Literature Review of the two tools

• Written Proposal and Presentation (due this week)

• Field visit - Isithebe, Kwa-Zulu Natal for data gathering of local South African values

• LCA: Software selection (SimaPro v7), Edition (student), Database selection (Ecoinvent v2), Impact assessment (Ecoindicator 99 & two others – CML 2000 and one other)(PRé Consultants 2008)


Research Approach: EE

• Undertake EE on sites using tools, spreadsheets, direct saving, calculations on Waste: Water, Energy, Packaging, Solid waste

• Four areas of packaging:– Avoid unnecessary extra, Reducing materials– Reuse, Recycling packaging – Disposal

• Use the six step process (Australian Industry Group 2004)

– Plan, Measure, Assess, Implement– Improve, Report/Document


Completed ProjectThe modelled LCA will have had the following:• Checks for completeness, consistency, sensitivity • Transparency of data• Uncertainty analysis• EoL scenarios modelledEco-efficiency results:• Completed the Printing site using audit, spreadsheets

and obtained direct savings in any of the four fields.Report written on sustainability knowledge (10 companies)

OVERALL – completed thesis


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References• Australian Industry Group. 2004. Eco-efficiency for the Queensland Food Processing Industry. Internet version of manual ISBN 0 9752100 2

5. • Banar, M. and Cokaygil, Z. 2008. A Comparative Life Cycle Analysis of two Different juice packages. Environmental Engineering Science. 25

(4): 549 - 555.• Burritt, R.L. and Saka, C. 2006. Environmental management accounting applications and eco-efficiency: case studies from Japan. Journal of

Cleaner Production 14 (14): 1262-1275.• De Eicker, M.O., Hischier, R., Kulay, L.A., Lehmann, M. 2010. The applicability of non-local LCI data for LCA. Environmental Impact

Assessment Review. 30 (3): 192-199.• ECR and EUROPEN 2009. Packaging in the Sustainability Agenda: A guide for Corporate Decision Makers. Joint publication of ECR Europe,

Belgium (www.ecrnet.org ) and The European Organization for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN) aisbl , Belgium (www.eruopen.be)

• Hanssen, O.J., Olsen, A, Mǿller, H., Rubach, S. 2003. National indicators for material efficiency and waste minimization for the Norwegian packaging sector 1995-2001. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 38(2):123-137.

• Huang, C. & Ma, H. 2004. A multidimensional environmental evaluation of packaging materials. Science of The Total Environment. 324(1-3):161-172.

• Institute of Packaging (SA) 2005, A Handbook of Packaging Technology, 2005 ed., IPSA: Pinegowrie, South Africa.• Lewis, H., Fitzpatrick, L., Verghese, K., Sonneveld, K. , Jordon, R. 2010. Sustainable Packaging Redefined. Draft. [Accessed 17 April 2010• http://www.sustainablepack.org/database/files/newsfiles/Sustainable%20Packaging%20Redefined%20Nov%20%202007.pdf]• OECD 2007. OECD Environmental Data. Compendium 2006-2008. Waste. [www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/58/41878186.pdf Accessed 17 April

2010]• Maxime, D., Marcotte, M. and Arcand, Y. 2006. Development of eco-efficiency indicators for the Canadian food and beverage industry.

Journal of Cleaner Production. 14 (6-7):636-648.• PRé Consultants, 2008. Introduction to LCA with SimaPro 7 Feb 2008 version 4.2 Amersfoort, The Netherlands • Robertson, G.L. 2010. Sustainable packaging: Does it Really exist? [ www.worldfoodscience.com/cms/?id=1005168 Accessed 17 April 2010].• Sevitz, J. 2003. A comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Plastic and Paper Carrier bags. M.Sc (Eng) thesis. University of the

Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. • Thomassen, M.A. , Dalgaard, R., Heijungs, R. and de Boer, I. 2008, Attributional and consequential LCA of milk production, International

Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 13 : 339-349. • Pagan, B. and Prasad, P. 2007.The Queensland food eco-efficiency project: reducing risk and improving competitiveness. Journal of Cleaner

Production. 15 (8-9): 764-771.• Tan, R.B.H. & Khoo, H.H. 2005. Life cycle assessment of EPS and CPB inserts: design considerations and end of life scenarios. Journal of

environmental management. 74(3):195-205. • Trois, C. and Simelane, O.T. 2010. Implementin separate waste collection and mechanical biological waste treatement in South Africa: A

comparison with Austria and England. Published online Doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2009.12.020.

CHE5055 M Crawcour research proposal 28 April 2010

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