Selling Green: Ambiguous Environmental Claims Exist in Packaging and Converting Industries

Selling Green: Ambiguous Environmental Claims Exist in Packaging and Converting Industries

Grishchenko G., The Packaging Group, Inc., Middletown, New Jersey, USA

With more than 1.3 billion people, China can claim having the fastest growing major economy in the world’s history. Severe environmental problems, however, have become an important factor restricting sustainable development of Chinese manufacturing and only powerful recycling industry can effectively relieve the pressure on the country’s environment. However, the only sensible recycling takes place for paper and metals with almost 14 million metric ton of recovered paper and 5 million ton of iron scrap. Ironically, Chinese manufacturing currently helps to reduce ecological impact to the environment by bringing paper and plastic «green» consumer products to the largest world economy, the USA. An endless supply of low wage labor and growing use of modern technologies assure the low price level of sustainable and biodegradable products that are delivered to the shelves of US grocery chains and department stores.

Conflicts of a Green Message

The current global economic hardship did not appear from nowhere. Today’s flare-up may re-examine current strategies in manufacturing based on unrestricted consumption growth. Spending patterns of the developed world can not be passed on to the rest of the world dominated by poverty and hunger.

Promising future developments may occur in different directions including new recycling technologies and better materials.

The growing world consumer population urges new approach to energy sources. Optimistic predictions dominate the media with emphasis on solar, wind and tide power sources, that often are presented as green and sustainable. However, so far the problems related to efficiency and cost prevail and practically, only less than 5–10 % of demand can be satisfied with these means. The rest is still relies on traditional sources like oil, coal and controversial nuclear power. Power from fusion, widely spoken about in the late 1950s, still remains quite far away in the future. The progress of this source seems to be elusive with the announcements of the next breakthrough discovery coming every ten years.

The sustainable manufacturing trend did not begin during recent economic crisis. Its roots are much deeper and go back to the beginning of manufacturing globalization in the 1970s. For the last 40 years of technological progress the ever growing food production and consumer goods industry created upsurge in packaging that provided competitive visual product presentation, assuring its protection from damage and pilfering.

Packaging was always the major means providing intact goods to the customer and encouraging new material research. But all these qualities came with the price. Modern paper, plastic and metal packaging today uses sophisticated printing and converting technologies, RFID and intricate multilayer barrier films. Eventually the cost of packaging raises taking significant portion of product price and in some cases exceeding it.

The most of developments point toward creation of so called environmentally-responsible or green packaging materials. Currently hundreds of companies are involved in bioplastics technology sector offering a wide range of new packaging solutions featuring plastic film starch based combinations for improved compostability. Production of biodegradable films expected to grow from 2006 levels of 150,000 metric ton to 2 million ton in 2011.

Realities and Myths of Biodegrading

Some manufacturers make claims that their products are biodegradable, which means that they will biodegrade when exposed to certain environmental conditions like open air, sunlight and microorganisms. A popular example is the plastic food containers in which fast food or packaged groceries arrive to a consumer. But the possibility that such items will be exposed to sunlight while buried dozens of feet deep in a landfill is little to none. And if they do biodegrade at all, it is only likely to be into smaller pieces of plastic.

Biodegradable items also may not break down in landfills if the industrial processing they went through prior to their useful days converted them into forms unrecognizable by the microbes and enzymes that facilitate biodegradation. Crude oil is a classic example of biodegradable petroleum, which breaks down without difficulty and quite rapidly. But when petroleum is processed into plastic, it is no longer biodegradable, and as such can clog up landfills to the end of days.

Despite recyclability and price issues the bioplastic industry is on the rise. According to trade association European Bioplastics, this industry challenges economic crisis, building new plants and investing in product innovation. The biodegradable concept based on polylactic acid (PLA) was pioneered by NatureWorks LLC, American company with branches in Europe in Japan, that marketed the Ingeo™ brand of PLA-based plastic. NatureWorks recently doubled its PLA capacity. DuPont uses a similar PLA process to make its Sorona EP thermoplastic polymer. There is another promising approach when naturally grown ingredients are converted to resins that are similar to petroleum-based plastic. Braskem SA (Brazil) manufactures a polyethylene (PE) sourced exclusively from sugarcane. Solvay Indupa extends Braskem’s technology by converting made of sugar ethylene into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) that is chemically similar to petroleum-based PVC.

Supermarket shelves are full of consumer products (mostly tableware) with brand names starting with words like Eco, Earth, Nature and Terra. Despite that their «green» content is quite different, however, they all claim to be biodegradable, compostable and sustainable.

The most of biodegradable products in the USA are being sold through higher end retail outlets such as Whole Foods and Wegmans supermarkets. There are a number of suppliers in this sector to be noticed.

• One of the world leaders of disposable tableware, Solo Cup Company has offered its version of «green» products which includes two types of Bare™ plates. One of them is made of bamboo that claimed to be a plant-based renewable material with far less petrochemicals than conventional plastic and the other uses sugarcane-based material as a compostable product. USA headquartered Solo Cup manufactures these products in China.

• VerTerra Dinnerware (square single-use plates) is sold by VerTerra, Ltd from Long Island City N. Y. These plates are «made from fallen palm leaves, produced by fair waged labor along India’s Malabar Coast». They are heat resistant (45 min. at 350 ºF in oven), naturally biodegrade in «fewer than 2 month after disposal», and claimed to be BPI-certified 100 % compostable. The plates have attractive look and, according to the company statement, are made of agricultural product waste without any chemicals or bonding agents. It is quite expensive, however, with $0.75 price per single-use plate manufactured in India.

• Reborn™ Dinnerware is another disposable product from Think LLC of Antioch, Tennessee made in India. The eco-friendly raw material is naturally shed betel palm spathes (sheath which covers the blossom of the palm flowers). Reborn™ plates are even costlier ($1.12) than VerTerra ones. They are heat resistant and claimed to be 100 % biodegrade and compostable, however, no specific assertion about break down time period. This approach as well as the previous one commercialize ancient practices and are environmentally beneficial if the customers in the developed world are ready to support it.

• TerraWare™ tableware (Earth Friendly plates, spoons, forks and knives) is marketed by Acadian Crossing Consumer Products LLC from Lafayette L. A. According to the company information, these products made of proprietary GMO (genetically modified organism) free cornstarch resin, having higher heat resistance than conventional PLA (220 ºF vs. 140 ºF). TerraWare™, which is made in China, claims that their products break down in about 4–6 months «with the right amount of moisture, oxygen and heat». It is hard to believe that a suggested home composting can provide such condition.

• Ultra Green™ and World Centric are the USA registered companies with manufacturing facilities in China. Their products range is quite wide including disposable tableware, food containers, trays, waste bags and toilet paper. Ultra Green™ products made of sugarcane and cornstarch and suppose to biodegrade or compost in 60 to 150 days. World Centric is using more exotic natural stuff like discarded wheat straws and bagasse (sugarcane leftover after juice extraction). This company uses cornstarch as a PLA source and adds 30 % of talc to it. World Centric calls itself a for-profit social enterprise, and provides very elaborate information about biodegradable, compostable and sustainable goods in society on its website. According to the World Centric charts, providing detail information about every «green» process, the break down of the company products may occur during the period from 1 month to 2 years in home compost setup and much quicker in commercial facilities. While supplying a wide selection of environmentally friendly products, World Centric gets engaged in global political and social issues. This makes the company’s activity quite ambiguous putting blame for world pollution, hunger and poverty on the capitalist developed nations while using cheap labor of Communist China to outsource its products.

• Despite the temptation of low-cost labor several companies do not outsource and rely on automated and sustainable domestic manufacturing organization. The largest player in this product line is Chinet business of Huhtamaki, one the world’s largest multinational consumer product company, headquartered in Finland. USA based Chinet offers biodegradable pulp plates that can be composted commercially or in household specific facilities. In addition, Huhtamaki developed BioWare® cups, which are made from NatureWorks Ingeo™ bioplastic. The other two US manufacturers of consumer food packaging, hygienic products and disposable tableware, Earthshell and Eco-Products use PLA-based bioplastic including Ingeo™ from NatureWorks.

The major problem with PLA-based plastic, aside of cost level, is low heat resistance with maximum temperature of around 140 ºF. A partial solution to this problem lies in special additives. Some of them like talc are known, but mostly are proprietary ingredients that can lift the limit to 200 ºF, but affects compostability. The waste byproducts of agriculture may go to the «green» equation, however, the benefits (and profits) may bring gain to businesses but not to the environment. Off-shore low-cost labor supply of ecology-friendly products depends on economic situation in the «wealthy» developed countries that willing to buy this pricey tableware or hygienics.

Recycling Hardship

Paper is considered to be one of the easiest materials to recycle offering numerous applications primarily in consumer tissue products and packaging. The dilemma for paper use is that addition of coating to create moisture-barrier properties makes recycling with traditional methods extremely costly. However, there are attempts to create a biodegradable waterproof paper with barrier quality for food packaging such as cartons, sleeves and labels. A limestone paper can perform almost as well as plastic and will degrade in several years to dust in a landfill setting.

In the United States, which is the world largest market for consumer products such as toilet paper, kitchen towels and napkins, tissue from 100 % recycled fibers makes up less than 2 % of sales among other brands both conventional and premium. In Europe and Latin America, products made of secondary fiber make up about average 20 % of the retail market. The United States obsession with soft tissue paper (softness comes as a quality of long virgin tree fibers, while recycling process cuts fibers and makes tissue paper products more coarse) puts companies such as Marcal Paper, Seven Generation, Earth Friendly Products, Ultra Green and others in the rather challenging position in competition with popular brands like Quilted Northern Ultra (Georgia Pacific), Cottonelle Ultra (Kimberly Clark), and Charmin Ultra (Proctor & Gamble). Fighting «green» drive the major virgin paper suppliers claim that virgin fiber is coming from managed tree plantations and does not affect nature’s forests. According to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm, these companies have shown sales increase of 40 % in 2008 in some markets.

Plastic recycling is a growing industry but the world economic crisis put it to a halt in almost all sectors. Currently the growth rate of rigid and flexible post-consumer plastics recycling in the USA is near zero while the recycling of plastic from durable goods in the country is simply does not exist. Explosion of consumerism in the developed world and recent growth of it in China and India leads to proliferation of the plastic materials use almost everywhere. Densely populated countries of the Western Europe as well as Japan with limited landfill space introduced recycling laws and regulations with the different levels of success. In today’s Germany, the country that introduced «Green Dot» packaging laws connecting suppliers of the goods with package disposal, urban dwellers face up 4–5 different containers for garbage collection representing metals, glass and plastics of different colors. However, the rest of the world is far from following this pattern for different reasons. The United States is leading the world in per capita packaging use, with plenty of land for dumps and lax recycling laws does not have a sound recycling strategy. This is not only questionable profits in recycling business or local resistance to modern garbage burning plants, but also the absence of the issue magnitude in the consumer’s mind.

Industrial recycling in the USA may considered to begin in 1988 when SPI (The Society of Plastics Industry) created its resin identification coding system. Although use of the code for all rigid plastic packaging is mandated by varying laws in 39 states, it became the de facto national standard.

According to Plastic News Magazine, The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers hopes to increase the recycling of rigid plastics beyond the easiest processed No. 1 (PET) and No. 2 (HDPE) by working with grocery chains to identify all obstacles to utilize the rest of the plastic materials coded No. 3 to No. 6 (PVC, LDPE, polypropylene and polystyrene).

This task in not going to be simple due to the absence of curb-collection channels and increasing flood of consumer product imports coded No. 5 (polypropylene) and No. 6 (polystyrene) coming from China as well as domestically made.

Recently Recycline, Inc., based in Waltham, Mass., initiated collection campaign to create a collection drive for post-consumer polypropylene (No. 5). The company uses PP for its range of consumer household products sold under the Preserve brand. Recycline produces plates, bowls and glasses with 100 % recycled polypropylene that was being collected thru its program «Gimme 5» in association with 250 Whole Foods Market stores in 13 states.

The Seattle based company, Pacific Market International, also accepts its own PP products back for recycling and promotes collection sites for No. 5 plastic. Pacific Market International makes variety of household products brands like Aladdin containers and Sustain lunch sets from recycled PP.

Today, the numerous problems plague the companies involved in PET recycling, considered to be a straightforward process. The misuse of identification code, when containers labeled with No. 1 code are made of combination of PET with copolymers, additives and barrier layers leading to difficulties in recycling process stream. Indeed, the problem comes when copolymer or other ingredients added, the resulting polyester no longer behaves as PET bottle polymer and may not process properly. What is more, because of the public perception that products labeled with No. 7 (other) are not recyclable, the brand owners label their products chemically related to PET with symbol No. 1 instead on No. 7 creating adverse processing effects.

New programs now are being created to recycle post-consumer and post-industrial PLA back into lactic acid. One of them, represented by recently created Biocor LLC from Concord, CA, intends to process PLA into lactic acid using cornstarch-based industrial and consumer waste. WRR Environmental Services Co., from Eau Clair, Wis. already turns recycled PLA back into lactic acid for NatureWorks LLC. Economics of this business remain to be proved when the price of recovered lactic acid will compete with the cost of shipping biodegradable PLA to landfills.

Currently, the industry tries to prevent a PLA-based material with the lower melting temperature from tainting the PET recycling stream. The proposed enhancement of the existing code by adding No. 10 for polylactic acid and No. 11 for PET related copolyester may help.

Third Way?

The «green» wave has hit the packaging business on all fronts for the last several years as its metal, paperboard and plastic sectors face the challenge of how to make single-use products that can be considered eco-friendly. While paperboard and metal industries use intrinsically sustainable materials with a well-established and easy consumer access recycling network across the globe, sustainable plastic processing is still developing. That’s why the producers of PLA-based plastic coated paperboard containers retain marketing advantage over processors of PP and PS ones. The fastest growing market of multi-layer barrier laminates for flexible packaging faces even worse recycling conundrum due to difficulties of separating and processing dissimilar plastics.

The prospects for economical plastic disposal may lie in the area of waste to energy conversion.

A concept of how to turn waste to energy is nearly 70 years old. However, only recently the most promising developments in this field takes place in the industrial world. Covanta Energy with locations in America, Europe and Asia operates energy-from-waste (EfW) facility in Dickerson, Md. The 15 year old plant processes an average of 1,500 tons-per-day of solid waste including plastic flexible packaging and generating up to 55 megawatts of energy, enough electrical power for 40,000 homes. Residue that remains from the process is loaded into sealed containers and shipped by rail to a landfill.

A further advancement of the concept can be demonstrated by Envion, Inc. The company’s Envion Oil Generator™ facility located in Derwood, Md. uses plastic waste-to-oil conversion technology. The generator unit can process 10,000 tons of plastic waste per year and accepts PET, HDPE, LDPE, PP, PE, PS and PVC (less than 10 %). Materials can be mixed and the generator can also process food contaminated plastic without presorting, cleaning and drying. The average oil recovery rate is 62 % and after further refinement the oil can be converted into gas, kerosene and diesel fuel.

According to Freedonia Group report, green packaging market in the USA is estimated at about $37.5 billion and is expected to grow nearly 5 % a year for the next 3–4 years (Figure).

Green packing market in USA, $ billion

Importance of this market as a part of total green approach to the environment should be embraced by anyone in the industrial world. Today, a good comprehension of a sustainability concept should prevail in any business development.

Проблемы производства и утилизации упаковки

Грищенко Г., The Packaging Group, Inc., Middletown, New Jersey, USA

В настоящее время предлагается много технических решений в области производства и переработки упаковки, направленных на повышение ее экологичности.

По сведениям ряда производителей, их продукты биологически разлагаемы, то есть распадаются под воздействием воздуха, солнечных лучей и микроорганизмов. Известные примеры — пищевая упаковка в ресторанах быстрого питания и супермаркетах. Однако вероятность того, что будучи захороненной на свалке на глубине нескольких метров, использованная тара попадет под воздействие солнечных лучей или воздуха, ничтожно мала. Даже если она биологически распадется, то на меньшие по размеру фрагменты.

При изготовлении материала его биоразлагаемые компоненты могут превращаться в соединения, неузнаваемые микробами и энзимами, содействующими процессу биоразложения. Так, сырая нефть — классический пример природной смеси жидких углеводородов, которая разлагается легко и довольно быстро. Однако продукт ее переработки — пластмасса может находиться на свалках очень длительное время.

Несмотря на проблемы повторного использования и высокую цену биологически разлагаемых материалов, их производство находится на подъеме. Согласно данным Европейской ассоциации биопластмасс, мировой экономический кризис не затронул эту индустрию: строятся новые заводы, финансируются инновационные разработки.

Экономические (а иногда политические) условия влияют на стратегию фирмы по формированию цены продукта. Могут быть выбраны многоразовое использование упаковки, утилизация, использование биоразлагаемых материалов или альтернативный метод — конверсия отходов в энергию. Эта перспективная концепция разработана около 70 лет назад. Однако ее промышленная реализация началась недавно.

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Grishchenko Greg, P. E. (USA Professional Engineering Licensee), Vice President, The Packaging Group, Inc., 607 April Way, Middletown, New Jersey, 07748, USA. Tel. (732) 741-34-25, fax (732) 453-61-75. E-mail