Case 27: Rethink food and drinks packaging

The market

In 2008, global consumption of liquid dairy products reached a record level of 258 billion liters, or growth of 2.2 % compared to the previous year. Or four billion additional liters of milk. The global aseptically wrapped drinking market amounted to 86 billion liters for 187 billion packaging. Sales have increased by more than six percent per year since 2003, Asia recording the fastest growth with more than 13 percent per year. Milk represents more than 45 percent of all products wrapped aseptically. The aseptic packaging makes it possible to sterilize food, drinks and their packaging separately, then combine them by sealing them in sterile conditions. This niche application for drinks is a growing market in a context where the packaging sector is increasingly adopting multilayer materials for boxes, sachets and bottles. By 2013, the global market will reach 113 billion liters with 265 billion packaging. In Asia consumption progressing faster than anywhere else in the world, the market reaches growth of 11%. Tetra Pak controls 80 % of the global market with an annual turnover of $ 10 billion. GIS, the second largest world manufacturer in cardboard bricks with 15 % market share has a turnover of $ 1.5 billion. The two companies have their headquarters in Switzerland. However, Tetra Pak is from Sweden and GIS is controlled by the New Zealand Rand group. The German group Bosch is also a competitor of weight on this multilayer packaging market. The latter is used for many categories of consumer goods. Drinks, cosmetic products, coffee, tea, snacks and bakery products.

Innovation

Food companies are looking for technologies to improve the conservation time and traceability of their products. The demand for a longer shelf life combined with better durability pushes the industry to rethink packaging techniques to biodegradable films and thin layer aluminum. Food quality polyethylene (PE) can one day be recycled with a biodegradable polymer, such as those produced by Novamont (Italy) or Braskem (Brazil). On the other hand, the aseptic packaging and the culottes are the two main factors that contribute to the growth of the solid municipal waste. Market leaders and patent holders on multilayer packaging have the design and engineering capacity to assemble complex packaging, but no one seems to know how to separate them. While efforts are made to recover the fibers, the consumption of large quantities of water, the plastic and aluminum complex, in the form of a leaf or dust, poses a major challenge. Aluminum represents an unacceptable waste of waste that industry has been unable to resolve. Although this layer of non -ferrous non -ferrous metals is essential to ensure the barrier to air, uncontrolled rejection implies that each year, 380 to 420,000 tonnes of aluminum are pouring into discharges, making it the biggest deposit of this pure metal (on average 1.5 gram of al per package).

Ms. Gloria Niño López obtained her diploma in biology in her native country, Colombia, then specialized in food sciences in Mexico. She studied the ease with which lichens penetrate the rocks and called them minors around the world. Indeed, their hyphae have only two thick cells, which allows the penetration of the rock at an astonishing speed. As the aseptic packaging appeared on the Bogota market, she noticed in a fortuitous way in the kitchen of her laboratory, how the sour milk of the open boxes had spread on a compact disc (CD). She realized that the fermented milk dissolved the aluminum layer on the CD in a few minutes, leaving a clean polycarbonate plastic. More in-depth observations have confirmed that even the cardboard packaging of milk was starting to separate where it had been cut. As a training microbiologist, she quickly identified the species responsible for this process and developed a solution from microorganisms available all over the world and naturally attracted by decaying drinks or foods. This is a standard solution for the separation of multilayer materials, an open source technology.

Anders Byström arrived at comparable conclusions during the operation of the Bedminster waste recycling plant in Stora Vika, near Stockholm. After three days of exposure in the rotary oven, the aseptic packaging, the food packaging, the coffee bags and the CDs left aluminum leaves and completely separated dust. Even if proof of efficiency has been demonstrated in Japan (in cooperation with Tetra Pak Japan), Brazil, Colombia, the United States and Sweden, the industry has so far been reluctant to actively 'Engage in the development of a decentralized process of separation from multilayer materials.

The first cash flow

It was the mayor of Curitiba, Casio Taniguchi, who decided in 2000 to create a social company for collecting aseptic packaging and separating them into three large components (paper, PE and aluminum). Due to the lack of support from suppliers who refused to make their industrial waste available for recycling, the project had to face a difficult battle. However, the experiences of Curitibá, Tokyo and Bogotá made it possible to refine the process and especially to prove that the biological solution could be produced locally. This opens the way to decentralized and social projects that relieve discharges and waste incinerators from a major and growing component: multilayer packaging. Politecnico di Torino, under the direction of Professor Luigi Bistagnino, has developed a detailed technical and economic plan which confirmed the profitability analysis.

The opportunity

Aluminum represents only a tiny part of the aseptic packaging, food packaging, pharmaceutical containers or CDs and DVDs. The possibility of setting up small operations combined with benefits- such as payment of bus tickets to marginalized communities, as is the case in Curitibá, which ensure perfect sorting of discharge packages- offers a platform Form for entrepreneurial initiatives wherever there is a landfill site. These projects contribute to generating multiple cash flows, overcoming the traditional problem of the core business. Indeed, if we focus only on the aseptic packaging, the volume can be too low. However, if we consider all multilayer materials, the characteristics of the blue economy become obvious: going beyond the reduction in costs by ensuring the generation of multiple income. The first actor is paid to recover the waste. The second is paid to ensure a longer commercial lifespan at the discharge, using waste as raw materials. The third actor sells the three recycled materials to manufacturers in the form of sheets or dust, and thanks to the high quality of the ingredients used, high prices will be provided. In this case, the basic ingredient necessary for the separation of aluminum is produced by the fermentation residues delivered with the packaging waste. This creates an inexpensive and self -sufficient intrusive. Finally, this economic model offers companies the opportunity to raise public awareness of the fact that their waste will be reused at the end of life to create jobs and new products or food. Although cities are not considered entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs could contact the city and set up a consortium, as is currently the case in different parts of the world. Politecnico di Torino is ready to show the way.