The relation between food shel-life and environmental impact of different plastic packaging alternatives

Sammanfattning: The attention to the environmental impact of plastics materials used in food packaging has produced several studies in the last decade and consumers have started wondering about the utility and the functions of food packaging. In fact, the use and the production of plastic polymers cause pollution due to the disposal and to the CO2 emission. Besides that, even if new polymers from organic and biological sources are deeply studied, plastics remain the most widely used food packaging materials. With this background, it is clear how much important is to investigate both the environmental impact and the performances of the food plastic packaging. Hence, the aim of this Master Thesis is, using a simplified LCA, to compare the environmental impact of the plastic packaging production of a set of 23 products with their barrier properties. Comparing these two packaging characteristics, it is also possible to evaluate the length of the shelf-life of the food products categorizing the sample depending on different types of materials and storage temperature. The results show that can be a dependence between barrier properties parameters, type of materials and type of products but, it emerged also, that to have a complete evaluation of the environmental impact of a packaging solution it is necessary to include and to consider the entire supply chain and the requirements of both packaging materials and the food products. This study has been considered useful by the company collaborating, Orkla Foods. It contributes to screen an heterogenous sample of products and to highlight the best performant packaging solutions in comparison with the environmental impact. It has been demonstrated that the methodology and the parameters chosen for the analysis are suitable and which application could be interesting both in the academia and in industry fields.