Pack2Sustain, LLC Page 1

Jay Edwards | November 2012 | jay.edwards@pack2sustain.com

Introduction / Background

Pack2Sustain is a technical services firm that works with organizations to optimize packaging systems.

There are two main aspects to this optimization work: the first involves technology scoping within the

global packaging material, equipment, and design industries to establish best practices for a given

application; the second involves the use of life-cycle analysis metrics to articulate and quantify

environmental performance.

Environmental performance is one of the three pillars of Sustainability; the other two address Economic

performance and Social performance. Packaging impacts Sustainability across all three of these areas,

and also plays a significant role in the advancement of Public Health. This report will illustrate and

discuss these impacts.

Packaging’s Role

Packaging can seem routine – even trivial – but its impacts on global society are significant. In the United

States alone, the U.S. Department of Commerce reports that the economic value of the packaging

industry is approximately $200 billion, or about 2% of U.S. GDP. The United States Census Bureau also

states that over 750,000 people are employed in the U.S. Packaging industry - examples of the relevant

stakeholders include product manufacturers, material suppliers, logistics personnel and retailers.

(Economic data source: American Institute for Packaging and the Environment; AMERIPEN)

One aspect of the packaging industry worth noting is that jobs in the sector build skills that can often be

readily transferred between employers or amongst functional areas within a given organization.

Packaging sits at the crossroads of product safety, design, marketing, sales and distribution decisions –

as a result, those who are successful in the field develop the ability to address considerations from a

broad and inclusive perspective.

Sustainability & Public Health:

The Role of Packaging

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The social role of packaging has perhaps the strongest tie to public health. The delivery of crucial

medical supplies and food require packaging that is designed to withstand the stresses of distribution

with its contents intact. Packaging can also make healthy foods more accessible. A 2012 study at

Michigan State University explored the role that canned fruits and vegetables play in American diets,

and found the following (source: Progressive Grocer):

The significance of microbiological contamination is underscored when we consider the listeria outbreak

traced back to Colorado-grown fresh cantaloupes in 2011. As stated in the Associated Press, September

28, 2011 article concerning the outbreak, listeria can be consumed by healthy adults without incident

but it can kill the elderly or those with weaker immune systems. Pregnant women are also at risk

because listeria passes easily to the fetus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide

guidance concerning how to properly handle and store cantaloupes to avoid exposure to listeria, and

also speak to use of mass-produced canned products as a way to avoid this exposure. (The CDC language

explicitly mentions canned meat spreads and fish products, but not fruit products.)

While some of the benefits of mass-produced canned products are well known, there are public health

concerns tied to the use of cans that are less well-defined. Bisphenol A or BPA is commonly used in the

linings of food and beverage cans, and in hard plastic bottles. Once ingested, BPA appears to alter

thyroid hormones, specifically those hormones that guide pre-and postnatal growth and brain

development. These changes were noted specifically in pregnant women and newborn boys according

to a 2012 UC Berkeley study, although the research team pointed to the need for further study to

understand BPA’s affects (source: SFGate ). The UC Berkeley study was the first to explore BPA’s

influence on thyroid hormones in pregnant women.

Canning can be a safer option for produce, due

in part to the canning process which creates a

barrier to microbiological contamination

Canned produce is not subject to seasonality or

refrigerated requirements, making it more

easily accessible

Canned foods can deliver savings up to 50% vs.

frozen and 20% vs. fresh

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Some of the specific findings from the UC Berkeley study show the complexity of the BPA / thyroid

hormone interaction:

Pregnant women with relatively higher levels of BPA in their urine had less of a thyroid hormone

called thyroxine in their blood

o A smaller part of the hormone that is known to affect the fetus' growth was not linked to

the mother's BPA levels

Newborn boys whose mothers had higher levels of BPA when pregnant showed signs of an

overactive thyroid.

o Newborn girls did not show the same signs, however. One explanation for the gender

difference may lie in studies that show female rats clear BPA more efficiently from their

bodies than male rats

About 2.4 billion pounds of BPA were produced in the U.S. in 2007, and about 90 percent of Americans

have traces of BPA in their urine. In July of 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned BPA

from baby bottles and sippy cups, which the industry had voluntarily done for years in response to

growing health concerns. (SFGate)

Another aspect of packaging’s social role involves serving as an impediment to product counterfeiting.

This crime poses extraordinary risk, particularly when it targets pharmaceutical products. According to

PharmaManufacturing, the World Health Organization estimates the size of the global trade in

counterfeit drugs to be $119 billion, and is expected to grow at 13% per year. It is also estimated

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that 1% of all prescribed drugs in the developed world – and

30% in parts of the developing world – may be fake. This is

especially striking given the CDC’s 2010 report on

prescription drug trends, which showed the following:

Over the last 10 years, the percentage of Americans

who took at least one prescription drug in the

previous month increased from 44% to 48%. The use

of two or more drugs increased from 25% to 31%.

The use of five or more drugs increased from 6% to

11%.

In 2007-2008, 1 out of every 5 children and 9 out of

10 older Americans reported using at least one

prescription drug in the previous month.

The most commonly used types of drugs included:

asthma medicines for children, central nervous

system stimulants for adolescents, antidepressants

for middle-aged adults, and cholesterol-lowering

drugs for older Americans.

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Fortunately, a potent arsenal of packaging options exists to frustrate would-be counterfeiters.

PharmaManufacturing discusses two approaches: the use of overt packaging technologies and the use

of covert technologies, both of which are summarized as follows.

Overt technologies do not require expert knowledge, and allow for immediate authentication of

packaging through visual inspection. Examples of such technologies are:

Holography, which may feature an image of the manufacturer’s logo and may also include

nanotext or hidden images for second- or third-level protection. In general high-security

holograms cannot be reproduced using conventional printing methods, and features like

nanotex may be visible only through a magnifier.

Color-shift inks, which appear as two or more colors depending on the viewing angle. The

process used to produce color-shift pigment is highly specialized, and its supply is tightly

controlled and involves strict code-of-conduct and end-use agreements.

Covert technologies provide an even higher level of protection as they are invisible and are difficult to

detect and replicate without specialist equipment and expertise. Examples of covert technologies are:

UV inks and print, which can be used to create an image on a given package that is only visible

under a given frequency of UV light. Not only is access to these inks and pigments limited, but

their end-use is restricted. In addition, if complex photographic images are produced, highly

specialized printing techniques are required.

Microtext print, an approach that generates characters that cannot be seen by the naked eye

and can be hidden in larger overt images. This technology requires specific and uncommon

equipment, materials and expertise – and like UV inks microtext can elude the notice of

counterfeiters who then fail to copy the relevant features.

PharmaManufacturing lastly speaks to the use of security tear tape, a physical impediment to package

access that makes it virtually impossible to open a given pack without damaging the pack surface. This

damage can be engineered to leave behind a void / tampered message on the package to alert the

inspector or consumer.

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The environmental role of packaging can perhaps most simply be stated as stewardship. The

manufacture of product ingredients and components – and the transportation, production and use of

the products from which these components are made - is often environmentally intensive. Packaging’s

most important role is to protect the environmental investment represented by the products they

contain. This is ideally achieved by using packaging materials that are renewable, that are made using

renewable energy, and which can serve as a useful input into a subsequent process once the product

has been consumed or used. All of this must be done with elegance so that only a sufficient amount of

material is used and so that the consumer is drawn to the package and finds it enjoyable to use.

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A study conducted by the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (INCPEN) provides a

telling example of the environmental investment made in a product.

A cheese product was modeled in the study, and it’s interesting to note that although packaging only

accounts for 5% of the total energy-use and emission impacts associated with the production, delivery

and use of the cheese, failure of the package would likely result in the loss of most if not all of the

resource investments. Such losses can – and do – multiply quickly when taken across entire industries or

regions. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in an August 2012 issue paper, looks at such

losses across the supply chain. When we consider only the life of a product after it is placed into a

package, we see losses of up to 10% during packaging (for grain products), 12% in distribution and retail

(for fruits and vegetables) and up to 33% after the product reaches the consumer (for seafood). The

consumer loss figure includes consumption away from home.

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Exploring consumer waste further, AMERIPEN (AMERIPEN) discusses home preparation of salads in its

document “Discover the Hidden Value of Packaging”. Traditional salads, made from individual vege-

Methane gas contributes to global warming to a degree that is 25 times more potent than carbon

dioxide over a 100-year timeframe (source: Methane). There is mounting evidence that global warming

contributes to more intense global storm activity, the likes of which we have most recently and tragically

seen with Superstorm Sandy and its impacts on much of the U.S. East Coast. To be clear, landfill

methane may only be one of a number of contributing factors to the ongoing shift in global storm

patterns, but the public health impacts of such storms are certainly significant.

A final example shows packaging as a positive environmental actor in the context of pet waste.

In this instance, packaging is itself the product, and it provides a key technical enabler to improve both

environmental and public health.

Conclusion

Packaging materials and components play important roles in the area of Sustainability and the area of

Public Health – as barriers to contamination, impediments to fraud and stewards of resource

investments. Future best practices in packaging will be marked by engagement amongst the entire value

chain, from product design to material sourcing to distribution to consumer use. The future in this space

will belong to effective integration and collaboration. For more, please visit Pack2Sustain.com.

tables that are cleaned and cut at home, can often

result in waste since the entire vegetable(s) are

seldom used or consumed. Alternatively, prepared

salads only include the edible portions of the salad

ingredients, and allow for the inedible portions to be

used constructively as animal feed. This can be

particularly important, since discarded food from

consumers’ homes – edible to humans or not -

produces methane gas as it degrades in some landfills.

Packaging film can be made to biodegrade in either

terrestrial or aquatic environments, and such a design

approach was taken for the Flush Doggy brand of pet waste

bags. According to the company’s web site (Flush Doggy):

America’s 71 million dogs produce 29,000 tons of

waste daily, consuming nearly 4% of all landfill space

Dog waste is a major source of fresh water

contamination

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states

that flushing pet waste is the best disposal method