Evaluation of Sustainability in the Development of Food Packaging

Abstract

In recent years, sustainable development has frequently appeared in technical and non-technical publications, particularly in regards to the pressing issues of high level of consumption and constant increase of waste in production processes. This has brought serious consequences in the environmental degradation, mainly due to the faster discarding of products, especially packaging. The process of packaging development must comply with the requirements of environmental preservation. This paper aims at evaluates packaging sustainability, company packages, two of them fulfilling for environmental requirements development by the National Institute of Technology (INT) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and other two are not considered environmental constraints in the design. The evaluation was developed using a checklist approach, a qualitative evaluation instrument that defines the level of attendance of sustainability requirements. Some of the criteria used were: sustainable materials, reuse, reuse during harvest, post-harvest, transportation, exhibition and placement at the point of sale and reduce costs for the producer and the final vendor. Finally, the checklist approach served to define: what is the best package of sustainable behavior? and can be used in other similar studies.