Environmental Impact of Food Packaging Materials: A Review of Contemporary Development from Conventional Plastics to Polylactic Acid Based Materials

Abstract

Plastics have remained the material of choice, and after serving their intended purpose, a large proportion ends up in the environment where they persist for centuries. The packaging industry is the largest and growing consumer of synthetic plastics derived from fossil fuels. Food packaging plastics account for the bulk of plastic waste that are polluting the environment. Additionally, given the fact that petroleum reserves are finite and facing depletion, there is a need for the development of alternative materials that can serve the same purpose as conventional plastics. This paper reviews the function of packaging materials and highlights the future potential of the adoption of green materials. Biopolymers have emerged as promising green materials although they still have very low market uptake. Polylactic acid (PLA) has emerged as the most favoured bioplastic. However, it is limited by its high cost and some performance drawbacks. Blending with agricultural waste and natural fillers can result in green composites at low cost, low greenhouse gas emissions, and with improved performance for food packaging applications. The continent of Africa is proposed as a rich source of fibres and fillers that can be sustainably exploited to fabricate green composites in a bid to achieve a circular economy.

An Overview of Plastic Waste Generation and Management in Food Packaging Industries

“…For example, polylactic acid polymer has been widely believed to easily biodegrade in landfills or home composts or even in aquatic environments. This is not true as the polymer does require an industrial composter and as such should be referred to as compostable [116][117][118][119][120].…”

The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Particulate Matter Emissions in Lombardy and Italian Citizens' Consumption Habits

“…Specifically, despite constituting one of the global ecological challenges today (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019), plastic is still widely used by companies for product packaging (Kedzierski et al, 2020). The situation became even more severe thanks to the advent of home delivery and takeaway services (Ncube et al, 2020). In this context, Patrício Silva et al found that the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to worldwide plastic pollution and precautionary measures challenged environmental sustainability (Patrício Silva et al, 2021).…”

Migration and Degradation in Composting Environment of Active Polylactic Acid Bilayer Nanocomposites Films: Combined Role of Umbelliferone, Lignin and Cellulose Nanostructures

“…Currently, plastic packaging waste is one of the biggest pollutants of the environment worldwide, thus the development of new food packaging materials with biodegradable or compostable properties is of great importance in the attempt to reduce the ecological impact [ 47 , 48 ]. In order to assess the compostable character of the manufactured green-based polymeric systems, the disintegration of the PLA-based mono and bilayer films was carried out under composting conditions.…”