7/27/2019 Packaging and Environment

1/2

Packaging and environment

Packaging industry has a very important role in environment. Public awareness in

recent years of the use of materials in the distribution of goods of all kinds has

increased considerably.From many years, criticisms have been levelled at wholeconcept of packaging by ecologists and environmental pressure groups. They say,

packaging makes excessive use of resources in a wasteful way, adds to the burden of

waste disposal and uses large amount of energy.Hence, packaging is waste.

The only reason for all these acquisitions is incomplete information and improper

awareness of the packaging materials. The product which the end user consumes,

finally package lands into the dustbin after performing all its functions and providing

rendering services to both product and consumer at various levels and in various

forms. Then also, after knowing these facts about the package life-cycle, the blamestill is on packaging industry. Hence a right perspective about packaging should be put

forward. Packaging is in fact, a relatively small user of energy as well as less

contributor to waste. Packaging is one of the major forces for preserving and

protecting goods and for keeping waste to minimum, continually strives to use less

material to carry out its specific goods. All concerned with making and using

packaging continually seek to understand better, why they operate as they do and

where inefficiencies exist, to rectify them.

Actually there are no waste management jurisdictions which are in apt nature, that isthe main reason for such hap-hazard situation about garbage disposal. Local and

regional acts do play role as they are region specific and can hence show wide

variations. Also the measurement techniques to waste is uncommon i.e. sometimes on

weight or volume basis. According to survey, packaging waste on average 20% by

weight of the contents of your dustbin and when compressed in landfill packaging

from all sources is less than 5% by weight and volume of total waste. Also

manufacturers are blamed of using excessive packaging materials. If they did, there

would be many fewer packaging companies in existence today companies have

a commercial interest in minimising packaging. A report by the Institute of European

Environmental Policy suggests that under-packaging can be much more of an issuethan over-packaging, in terms of wasted energy and resources from ruined goods.

Energy Considerations :

For any particular operation, its energy consumption should be clearly stated and

estimated truly based on its required purpose. In practise, it is just these decisions that

cause difficulty together with the fact that few industries at present monitor the energy

requirements of individual machines or raw materials.

To produce a can of beer, it must include the operations of mining the ore, extracting

metal, rolling it into sheets, conversion of sheets into bodies & ends and assembling

7/27/2019 Packaging and Environment

2/2

the final can. Close monitoring of energy consumption leads to les impact on

environment.

Also a study of substitute materials which have great potential capacity to replace

natural resources having great inputs in packaging industries, leads to conservation

which is very essential. Substitution, innovation and improvisations have madeconsiderable changes. For example, an increase in growth of plastics used in the

packaging which light weight, cheaply manufactured, wide choice of varieties etc. has

caused decreasing trend in the use of other packaging media.

Recycling of packaging material :

Always we adopt measures wherein we can reduce, reuse and recycle anything and

hence use it again.In industries like paper, glass not only scrap has been fed back into

the process, but used and waste materials from industry & domestic sources have been

re-used. For example, glass containers have been reused after cleaning or employed

with cullets to improve the flow and heating characteristics of the charge for the

furnace.

A Life Cycle Assessment of the packaging material helps in analysis of environment

burden it creates. This process identifies energy and materials used and waste releasd

into environment, and evaluates and implements opportunities to apply environment

improvement. It provides a comprehensive view of environmental aspects of the

packaging process and more accurat picture of the true environmental trade-offs in

material selection.

To summarize, the main functions of packaging are to prevent damage and hence

reude waste not only goods and materials but also energy and labour. When packaginghas done its job, it can be used for something else and finally can be disposed in a

landfill or can undergo incineration. Even where the primary function of packaging isnot that of conservation it is designed to improve sales or to provide convenience both

will lead to better profits and will contribute to improvements in the quality of life. If

packaging is still termed as waste, then for us WASTE IS WEALTH.