Avaliação da sustentabilidade em embalagens e de sua contribuição para a redução do desperdício de alimentos

Abstract

Food consumption in modern world is not restricted to areas close to production centers. In this complex distribution chain, packaging plays a fundamental role, increasing shelf life and protecting products against the presence of contaminants or mechanical damage, thus contributing to food waste reduction on the way between producers and consumers. On the other hand, they are responsible for severe environmental impacts, perceived as very harmful to the environment by consumers, who don’t pay attention to their benefits, including environmental ones. Is it possible, however, to demonstrate that the use of packaging in certain products, even producing a significant amount of solid waste, can be beneficial to the environment? The aim of this study is to investigate the contribution of packaging to reducing food waste by evaluating the environmental performance of certain food products. This study was limited to evaluating the contribution of packaging to reducing food waste when exposed in supermarkets. The work is carried out in two stages: a literature review was initially carried out, with references to the comparison between packaging attributes perceived as sustainable by consumers, and those that have less impact in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), with emphasis on its role in reducing food waste. In the second section, on materials and methods, a comparison was made of the environmental performance of certain products that are marketed in packaged and unpackaged options. The possible reduction of waste was determined taking into account factors that can be attributed exclusively to the presence of packaging, defined through three interviews carried out with supermarkets owners in the region of Curitiba: inhibition of excessive manipulation of products; and use of parts of damaged products, using packaging to avoid complete disposal. This can result in a reduction in waste of up to 20%. The selected products were broccoli, grapes and papaya. The functional unit is human feed with 1 kg of food product. The product system considers the cradle-togate approach, encompassing the path from food and packaging production to the point of sale. The final disposal of food and packaging waste was also included, considering a portion of recycled parts, respecting actual recyclability rates. The ecoinvent 3.8 cutoff database and the EPD method (2018) were used. The results indicate that the use of packaging can be beneficial in certain impact categories, in the case of excessive handling. For the use of cut products, lower values were obtained in all evaluated impact categories, for packaged products. The study concludes that the evaluation of the use of packaging should consider the reduction of product waste generated by them, and its main contribution is to emphasize the importance of evaluating all the impacts related to a product, and not just those that are easy to identify, case of solid waste generation in packaged products.