The Significance of Environmental Attributes as Indicators of the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Packaging and Food Service Ware

The
environmental impacts of packaging and food service ware (FSW)
are increasingly the subject of government policy, public discourse,
and industry commitments. While some consideration is given to reducing
the impacts of packaging across its entire life cycle, most of the
focus is on packaging waste or feedstock substitution. Efforts typically
focus on specific packaging characteristics, or material attributes,
commonly perceived to be environmentally preferable. This article
summarizes an extensive meta-review of existing published literature
that was performed to determine whether the material attributes recyclability,
recycled content, compostability, and biobased, commonly considered
to be environmentally beneficial, correlate with lower net environmental
impacts across the full life cycle of the packaging and FSW. Seventy-one
unique life cycle assessment (LCA) studies that quantify the environmental
impacts throughout the entire life cycle of packaging and FSW were
analyzed. These studies included over 5000 comparisons for 13 impact
categories commonly analyzed in LCA studies. The results from the
meta-review identified a number of instances where material attributes
do not correlate with environmental benefits for packaging and FSW.
Rather, other characteristics such as material choice or mass of the
packaging/FSW products can have higher influence in determining life
cycle impacts.