A review on European Union’s strategy for plastics in a circular economy and its impact on food safety

Can Sustainable Packaging Help to Reduce Food Waste? A Status Quo Focusing Plant-Derived Polymers and Additives

“…One of the main strategies is the application of materials with certain barrier functions like gas and water vapor permeability (WVP) guaranteed by various fossil-based materials [7,8] (for definition of terms such as fossil-based, bio-based, etc., see glossary at the end of the main body text). Many of these fossil-based foils are complex multi-layer materials that represent a large group of individual fossil-based polymers with different chemical and technical characteristics due to diverse requirements regarding food safety and waste reduction [8][9][10]. Another strategy is the use of active packaging [2,11].…”

“…Moreover, there are increasing issues concerning the harm caused to the environment mainly due to the manufacturing phase (i.e., oil refinery and material production), problematic end-of-life strategies, and adverse effects on human health [5,14]. Despite the negative environmental and health-related effects, fossil-based plastics are favored because of their lightweight nature and low costs [8,9]. As a result, the use of plastic packaging is growing [17] caused by the need to reduce food waste due to the steadily growing population and market expansion [18].…”

“…The plastics strategy forces the industry to rethink plastics design and their usage, disposal, and recycling within the entire value chain. The main goal is to achieve improvements in sustainability [8].…”

“…To reduce environmental impacts, one key requirement is the complete reusability and/or recyclability of all plastic packaging placed on the EU market by 2030 [14]. Moreover, Matthews et al stated that innovations in food packaging have to focus on maintaining food safety and shelf life and reducing food waste [8].…”

“…Several studies considering cradle-to-grave life cycle analysis (LCA) of various bio-and fossil-based plastics showed that the production and use of plastics produced from renewable resources is generally advantageous in terms of saving fossil resources and reducing GHG emissions [28,32,33]. Biodegradable or compostable plastics can reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills [1,8]. Natural bio-based polymers such as agar, chitosan, cellulose, and starch represent the group of bio-based polymers in food packaging applications [34].…”