Tetra Pak publishes a market leading, independently verified comparison of the environmental impacts of common packaging formats.
The new Life Cycle Assessment of Beverage and Food Packaging in Australia and New Zealand report assesses formats such as cardboard boxes, PET bottles, rPET bottles, HDPE bottles, bags, tin cans, glass bottles and jars.
The report shows that the largest contributor to carbon emissions is the source of the materials used in packaging.
The results show that cardboard packaging has a climate impact of 51 grams – almost 12 times less than glass packaging (605 grams), 5.5 times less than PET (280 grams) and 3 times less than HDPE (164 grams).
Cardboard boxes performed best compared to other packaging formats due to their material efficiency (with less material).
"Food packaging plays a vital role in feeding the world's population, but it creates problems for our climate," said Andrew Pooch, Tetra Pak's managing director.
"Today the global food system accounts for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions."
Mr. Pooch continues, “As an industry, we need to talk about minimizing packaging impact from cradle to grave if we are serious about sustainability.
"It is important for the F&B industry to explore new ways of making materials, addressing their embedded carbon, and promoting climate-neutral materials."
Tetra Pak says cartons have the potential to become the world's most sustainable food package.
They say if we swap Australia's pasteurized milk from formats like HDPE bottles, rPET bottles and PET bottles to carton, it would be the annual equivalent of taking more than 77,000 cars off the road.
The full report is available on the Tetra Pak website.
