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Contrary to the current prejudices voiced against it, the existence of packaging is not accidental. It meets a real need: that of protecting goods and conserving available resources as much as possible.
The essential function of packaging (ensuring that the packed product reaches the consumer in the same state as it left the factory) is well-known. We only see a part of the cycle when we open the packet, take out the product and throw away the packaging. And yet it is the packaging that enables us to conserve all the resources, including the energy that went into manufacturing and transporting the product in the first place. It is therefore important that we are aware of the essential reasons that are at the core of the development of packaging.
Packaging and protection
The product must be protected against attacks from all quarters: heat, dampness, air, bumps suffered during transportation. Packaging must meet all of these challenges as well as containing the product itself. This implies a resistance to both internal and external corrosion, with effective properties that guarantee resistance to gas, oxygen, water and smells .
Packaging and safety
Packaging has to be impregnable. Certain cases of tampering have caused industry to come up with even safer tamper evident seals on packaging. Currently most packaging has a safety device that allows us to ensure that it is perfectly sealed at the moment of opening. Tourists travelling abroad in an exotic country can therefore rest assured, when seeing that the cap is well sealed, that the bottled water they are buying does actually contain mineral water and that they do not risk bacterial contamination. The same development has taken place in the field of medicine where, in certain cases, three layers of safety packaging guarantee that the contents cannot be tampered with.
Packaging and conservation
Ever more effective materials allow packaging to resist increasingly tough processing. This means that conservation can take place at temperatures as low as –80° or that packaging can withstand sterilisation processes (handling and storage at 120-140° under high-pressure water vapour), pasteurisation processes and even irradiation. The latest generation of packaging is studied to ensure resistance to sophisticated processing such as aseptic conservation (conservation of fresh food at room temperature) or under controlled conditions (prepared meals which can be conserved for up to 21 days) and which require a high degree of resistance to gas.
The benefits of these ultra-resistant types of packaging are clear: in industrialised countries, only 2 or 3% of goods are spoiled before reaching the final consumer. In developing countries, there is a spoilage rate of 30 to 50% due to a lack of effective packaging.
Bad packaging or a lack of packaging have disastrous consequences when it comes to conserving resources. Industry’s continuous efforts to optimise packaging are for one simple reason: losses are reduced through better product protection. Investment in packaging is largely compensated for by reducing wastage of resources. The more precious the product, the more effort the manufacturer will put into protecting it. Food packaging is heavily criticised for the over-packaging that allegedly takes place. But food production is a costly process and manufacturers are legitimately keen to ensure that their products arrive at their final destination in perfect condition.
Changes in our lifestyle require ever safer and more resistant packaging. Products often need a long life expectancy, even after having left the shelf in a shop. Some goods travel great distances before they are consumed - at the office, on the street, in the car, at home or in a factory. Imagine carrying a slice of camembert home on a hot day without any wrapping to stop it from melting! The durability of many products is often put to harsh tests and must therefore pass resistance requirements under the most extreme conditions.
Furthermore, the energy used in manufacturing packaging is largely compensated for by the energy contained in the product. For example, the energy necessary to produce packaging for bread is equal to 1.4 MJ (megajoule) while 1 kg of bread provides its consumer with 10 MJ of energy! Packaging therefore saves more energy than it consumes.
This article reproduced by kind permission of
EUROPEN - The European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment
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