A benchmarking project from Austria has analysed the sustainability of packaging for dairy products such as milk and butter.
26 July 2024
(Image: Shutterstock, Andrey Burstein)
Since January 2024, the mandatory deposit in Germany now also applies to milk and mixed milk drinks. When consumers return the emptied containers to a vending machine, they will receive 25 cents. The aim is to protect the environment and resources and to promote recycling. This makes sense, as a „benchmarking project to measure the sustainability of packaging for dairy products“ in Austria last year found different results in terms of sustainability.
In their project, the researchers not only looked at packaging for drinks such as milk and milk-based mixed drinks, but also other dairy products such as yoghurt, semi-hard cheese, spreads and butter. The primary function of packaging is to protect the product. In addition, environmental and sustainability aspects are becoming increasingly important. Accordingly, the project by Circular Analytics and FH Campus Wien looked at these two aspects. The Benchmarking project provides a holistic sustainability assessment and focuses on six categories of dairy products: Drinking milk, yoghurt and drinking yoghurt, spreads and cream cheese, hard and semi-hard cheese and butter.
24 companies such as dairies, packaging manufacturers and food retailers took part in the study and sent in samples of their products. These were then analysed according to the criteria of recyclability, recyclate content, use of renewable raw materials, consumer involvement, carbon footprint, packaging efficiency, residual emptying and use of certified materials. The 230 products submitted were analysed for the DACH region. The selected region is exciting in that the different waste and recycling infrastructures, as well as national legislation, lead to very different results for some packaging in the three countries.
The challenge of using recycled materials
Let's start with packaging for drinks such as milk and mixed milk drinks. The packaging submitted in this category will hardly come as a surprise. They mainly included beverage cartons and PET or HDPE bottles. If you look at the recyclability of the packaging, a 100 per cent rPET bottle with PET sleeve and HDPE screw cap best off. Their recyclability is more than 99 per cent. The picture is different for the frequently used composite beverage cartons. The recyclability is only between 62 and 87 per cent, as only the fibre content can be assessed. „Here it is important to distinguish between and fresh milk, as different packaging concepts can be used for different types of milk. can be used,“ explains Charlotte Werner, Team Lead Circularity at Circular Analytics. She was involved in the benchmarking project.
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Charlotte Werner, Lead Circularity at Circular Analytics (Image: Koen Smet)
„Products with a longer shelf life require stricter barrier properties, for which aseptic composite beverage cartons are used (with an additional aluminium barrier). Composite beverage cartons without an aluminium barrier are used for fresh milk products, resulting in better recyclability and lower resource consumption, among other things.“
In the area The use of recycled materials in the food industry is often restricted for hygiene reasons, In the European Union, only recycled PET is currently permitted for direct food contact. Other aspects that have an impact on the carbon footprint of packaging are the transport distance and the electricity mix, which can vary internationally.
A similar picture emerges when looking at packaging for mixed milk drinks. The researchers analysed to-go cups, plastic bottles and composite beverage cartons. The best results were achieved by PET bottles with material-compliant decoration and directly printed aluminium cans. In both cases, the recyclability was more than 99 per cent.
Butter packaging does not fulfil quotas
The picture is very different for butter packaging. Fibre-based wrapping film is most commonly used here, but this poses a problem for recycling: In the DACH region, the films can only be recycled to a limited extent or not at all. The composite of paper, aluminium and/or plastic cannot be separated to a high quality with current recycling technology. The best recyclability values were achieved by a thermoformed PP tray with lid and aluminium plate. Its recyclability in Germany and Austria is 99.36 per cent.
This category also includes Recycled material only in the form of fibre components and for a thermoformed tray with a cardboard sleeve. In contrast, the use of renewable raw materials is high. For the frequently used wrapping films, it is 60.77 per cent. Cardboard-based plastic thermoforming trays also use 39.5 per cent renewable raw materials.
However, of the 27 samples analysed in this category, less than half have a recyclability of more than 50 percent. This seems all the more dramatic when you consider that the planned Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation of the EU stipulates a minimum requirement of 70 per cent. Finally, there is also something positive: the climate impact of the majority of butter packaging is very low due to its low weight, and the packaging impresses with its good packaging efficiency.
Overall, the benchmarking project shows how complex assessment of the sustainability of packaging is. One important realisation is certainly that the recyclability of much packaging is still below the minimum requirements planned by the EU in the PPWR. The Packaging design also influences the reprocessing of packaging, Even small components such as paper labels on plastic packaging can reduce the recyclability of the entire packaging.
Today, packaging is no longer just about protecting the product. For the initiators of the benchmarking project, sustainable packaging fulfils several tasks. It protects the product, no harmful substances are released into the product, the use of resources is minimised and the packaging can be recycled for as long as possible.
„The chosen research approach of taking a holistic view of the sustainability of packaging will be of crucial importance in the future. A one-dimensional analysis based on criteria as important as recyclability will not be sufficient to optimise packaging according to ecological criteria.“
