It’s hard to deny that cling film is a useful product in the kitchen. When used to wrap prepared food or unused veggies it can help keep food fresher for longer and reduce food waste. But soft plastics are challenging to collect and sort for recycling, meaning most of it ends up in landfill, where it can remain intact for hundreds of years.
In addition to domestic uses, shrink film has become the go-to product for wrapping pallets. In this age of containerisation, products loaded onto pallets are each wrapped with between 90 and 150 meters of the stuff. With the equivalent of 900 million 20-foot containers shipped each year, some with 10-12 pallets on board, that adds up to billions of meters of wrap per year. Industry estimates show over four million tonnes are used every year. To put that into some perspective – conservatively, 60% of containerised cargo is transported on pallets, using enough wrap to reach from the earth to the sun and back not once but twice! Wrap then represents a significant challenge if we want to reduce our use of plastics.
There are at least two companies tackling this issue, with one of them based in Australia. Great Wrap offers a range of wraps for the domestic and commercial markets, including various thicknesses of pallet wrap and cling wrap for kitchen use. According to the company’s website, ‘Great Wrap is made with compostable biopolymers. Currently, we’re using plant-based oils, agroforestry waste and pbat [polybutylene adipate terephthalate, a fully biodegradable polymer] within our range of products. Our material inputs are certified home compostable and food contact approved.’ When disposed of in a home compost it is claimed that the wrap will decompose within 180 days. Without leaving microplastics. Commercial clients without access to compost facilities are encouraged to dispose of their wrap through traditional channels. If the pallet wrap ends up in landfill it will eventually decompose, although this will take considerably longer.
Great Wrap also has plans to start manufacturing PHA [Polyhydroxyalkanoates produced by microorganisms] in our own biorefinery. PHA is not only home compostable but marine degradable too so it will break down if it makes its way to the ocean.
An American company, BioNatur Plastics, had developed a range of products including stretch pallet wrap that can be recycled or composted. According to the company’s website, ‘BioNatur’s proprietary organic additive attracts naturally occurring anaerobic bacteria in the landfill to digest the enzymes and break down the large plastic molecules into smaller organic molecules that the bacteria then recognize as food. They then digest these smaller molecules and continue the process until the plastic is fully biodegraded, typically in 8-12 years.’ While 8-12 years might seem a long time it’s far quicker than traditional plastics which take hundreds of years and also remember that BioNatur’s products can be recycled. Recycling is, of course, preferable to landfill from an environmental perspective. Additionally, BioNatur’s materials can be recycled together with traditional plastics, overcoming the main problem associated with bioplastics, as they usually have to be separated to prevent contamination.
While in an ideal world, we could simply aim to cut the wrap, the reality is that containerisation is here to stay. We need more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional wrap and both Great Wrap and BioNatur are leading the way here. Don’t forget that Great Wrap has a domestic offering as well so start by cutting the wrap at home and order some today!
P.S. This blog doesn’t usually cover innovations in packaging (as there are plenty of existing publications focused on this topic) but the scale of this problem warrants attention from manufacturers and designers of consumer products. Products are frequently containerised and shipped around the world and while we often consider the environmental impacts of the shipping solution it can be easy to overlook the damage caused by four million tonnes of wrap heading for landfill. Now there are alternatives and it is the responsibility of designers and manufacturers to play their part and demand their use.