Session: Packaging

Assessing the Sustainability of Packaging Systems for Fruit and Vegetable Transport in Europe based on Life-Cycle-Analysis
Stefan Albrecht,   Department Life Cycle Engineering, University of Stuttgart
Leif-Patrik Barthel,   Department Life Cycle Engineering, University of Stuttgart
Martin Baitz,   PE International GmbH
Sabine Deimling,   PE International GmbH
Matthias Fischer,^*   Department Life Cycle Engineering, University of Stuttgart
Julia Pflieger,   Department Life Cycle Engineering, University of Stuttgart

Every day, thousands of goods make their way from the producer to the consumer. Packaging systems play an essential part in the logistic chain. For packaging fruit or vegetables, wooden boxes, cardboard boxes and plastic crates are most commonly used. While the first two are non-returnable packaging systems and normally disposed of or partly recycled after one use, plastic crates as a rule are returnable packaging, washed and reused many times.

The analysis of the individual ecological performance of the current packaging options over their lifetime and life-cycles is important, in order to identify ecologically favourable packaging system for fruit and vegetables according to specific boundary conditions. Concur-rently, optimisation potentials to further reduce the impacts of packaging can be identified. By covering ecological, economic and social effects of a system, the environmental information is framed by these two important aspects towards an overall sustainability assessment in its broadest sense.

Compared to a “one-point study”, which considers fixed sets of boundary conditions and situations, in this study a different approach is pursued: a representative base case is chosen and assessed, relevant parameters influencing environmental impacts, characterised by CML-indicators, in the life cycle are identified, varied and then quantitative changes on the results are discussed.

Considered Scenarios: In the conservative scenario (10 years lifetime of the plastic crates assumed, 5 rotations per year), the amount of 66.667 crates leads to 3.333.350 fillings over their life cycle. To fulfil this transportation task with the one-way-systems (wood and cardboard) 3.333.350 crates have to be produced, used and disposed.

In the case of the multi-way scenario, 80.000 plastic crates (13.333 have to be replaced during the assumed lifetime) are produced and disposed, but require other necessities during lifetime such as washing, replacement and return transports.

Selected Results: The results are structured according to the three pillars of sustainability; environment, economy and social effects. They show selected findings of the study.

Table 1: Contribution of the crate systems to the annual European emissions total (ppm)

Table 2: Relative increase of costs due to doubling the transportation task from the conservative scenario to the technical scenario

Table 1 shows the contribution to 5 important environmental impact categories in relation to the annual European total emissions. In Table 2 the relative increase of costs due doubling the transportation task of the different systems can be seen and Table 3 shows the amount of human labour for the different stages, which is equivalent to a “job creation potential”.

Table 3: Working hours for production and operation per extended functional unit

An additional scenario was assessed, assuming an alternative life time of twenty years for the plastic crates, resulting in a tendency to less environmental impact, less cost but not much less work for the plastic crate option in relation to the compared cardboard and wooden boxes.

Conclusions: The current and ongoing discussion about sustainability proofs the necessity to assess and measure sustain-ability. This study shows that it is feasible in a structured methodological way. It is clear that such a study will not be able to cover sustainability exhaustively, but it can be seen that aspects from the field of sustainability complement the environmental life cycle assessment and provide important additional information for decision makers in politics and industry. The use of the same model for the assessment of the different aspects leads to a consistent approach. The utilisation of a consistent database ensures the comparability with later studies.

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