(68e) On the Interplay of Food Packaging Design and Food Supply Chain Sustainability

Nearly 40% of all plastic produced worldwide is used for packaging, and projections suggest that this amount can increase in the future [1,2]. Plastic packaging, in particular, is essential in helping preserve, extend shelf-life, and maintain the quality and safety of diverse food products. As a result, plastic packaging plays a fundamental role in food supply chain design and operations (from production to storage to transportation to retail and consumption). Food packaging represents nearly 66% of the total packaging waste by volume [3]. Notably, most of this packaging becomes waste after a single use; moreover, a fraction of plastic packaging is lost at each stage of the food supply chain.

There are strong and interesting trade-offs between the economic and environmental impacts of plastic packaging and of food supply chains. For instance, packaging helps avoid food waste by extending food shelf life, and increases food accessibility as food can travel longer distances, but this comes at the expense of using materials that are complex and difficult to recycle (e.g., multilayer plastic films, polystyrene, and plastic-coated paper cartons). Moreover, current food production trends, such as food processing and marketing strategies, can lead to overpackaging, resulting in increasing amounts of non-biodegradable waste [4,5]. These trends exacerbate the environmental impacts of food supply chains such as carbon emissions, land-use change, and plastic pollution [6]. The impact of plastic packaging is commonly overlooked in food supply chain studies (which often focus on the boundary of the food system) [7-11]. As such, there is an urgent need for holistic frameworks to study interconnected impacts of plastic packaging and food supply chains [3].

In this work, we quantify the economic and environmental impacts of different plastics for food packaging (e.g., multilayered fossil-based films, bio-based materials, and compostable materials) [12,13]. We integrate techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment with a plastic pollution analysis into a computational framework to assess the hidden impacts of plastic packaging, including its production and end-of-life disposal. By considering the plastic leakages into the environment, we aim to provide a framework for a fair comparison between food packaging options. Furthermore, we analyze the trade-offs (food waste reduction against plastic pollution leading to food insecurity) and flexibility (transport and shelf-life) that each option provides. We apply our framework to the supply chain and packaging of cheese and coffee, which have significant environmental and socio-economic impacts.

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