This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research suggests that replacing polyethylene (PE) packaging with paper, glass, aluminum or steel often does not reduce environmental impacts across a product's life cycle. Building on previous research, the study, published in Environmental Impact Assessment Review, evaluated five common packaging applications and found that PE packaging often had lower potential impacts across indicators including global warming potential, water scarcity, land use, acidification and eutrophication.
Researchers from Michigan State University, Trayak and ExxonMobil found that environmental performance depends on material quantity, transportation packaging, recycling, reuse and the package's ability to protect the product. "Packaging's environmental impact is often framed as a question of which material is best, but our results show that this approach is too narrow," said Rafael Auras, co-author and a professor at the Michigan State University School of Packaging. "We need to consider the complete packaging system and the product being protected." The researchers initially scaled the analysis to a hypothetical replacement of approximately 3 million metric tons (3.3 million tons) of annual U.S.
PE packaging demand with alternative materials—paper, glass and metal. The results for each packaging system studied indicated that a change from PE packaging to an alternative could increase greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of three to four, as well as have up to five times higher acidification impacts and as much as 29 times higher freshwater eutrophication impacts. The alternatives to PE packaging also generally required more water, land and other resources.
The authors emphasize that these findings apply to the applications, indicators and assumptions evaluated, and do not mean PE is preferable in every application. Packaging systems often include primary packaging, secondary packaging for grouping or distribution and tertiary packaging for transportation. Yet the most optimized primary packaging isn't necessarily wrapped in the most optimized secondary or tertiary packaging.
And adding these components can sometimes reduce or even reverse the differences between primary packaging options. Similarly, the systems approach becomes even more important when the product is included. For most of the 47 packaging systems examined, the product accounted for more than half of the combined product-and-packaging environmental impact in many of the categories studied.
In these cases, assuming complete functional equivalence when some packaging may prevent leakage or breakage better than others may lead to the wrong conclusions. "The package has an environmental footprint, but it also performs a critical function, protecting the product," said lead author Dr. Elizabeth Avery of Trayak.
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