El Packaging Cluster and the cluster food service yesterday organized the III Sustainability Conference-Reduce, Re-use, Recycle at the Estrella Damm Factory in Barcelona. After the presentation by Alejandro Utrera, Foodservice Cluster Manager, Rafa Hernández, from Costa Cruisesexplained the 4GoodFood project, "which is managing to reduce food waste by 50%", a goal set for 2030 but which they will achieve ten years before, in 2020. Thanks to this project, prepared food that has not been consumed in the cruise is packaged in an appropriate way and sent to solidarity organizations in different cities where they stop (in Barcelona, they have an agreement with the Banc dels Aliments). He also explained that they already have two liquefied natural gas powered cruises, Costa Smeralda and Costa Toscana, a step forward in favor of sustainability.
Next, Javier Mir, from Frit ravich, spoke about the "profitable growth" and, in particular, about the project of optimization of coils FSE, whose objective "is to reduce the consumption of plastics and the simplification by the adjustment of the coils". In a first phase, it is being applied to nuts and popcorn, to later be implemented in chips and snacks. "It has a double benefit: lower environmental impact and lower costs." As a result, a reduction in plastic emissions of 18 tons / year has been achieved, aligned with a sustainability strategy. In addition, an annual saving of 180.000 euros will be obtained, with an improvement in coil cost of approximately 17%. Thus, a simplification and standardization of the coils has been achieved through the application of a single criterion.
Later, Marta Álvarez, from the group Areas, restoration operators, explained the Circular Journey project to reduce environmental impact, based on replacing references and generating less environmental waste. To eliminate plastic, they turned to other materials; thus, they changed the plastic spoons, which are used to stir coffee, for sticks. In order to prevent, they thought not to leave material available to the user and deliver it only on request and optimize the elements in the presentation of the offer. To recycle, they looked for alternative, more sustainable materials, as well as educating and sensitizing the staff and the consumer in the selection.
Finally, Santi Aliaga, from Zyrcular Foods, spoke about the challenge of being a comprehensive protein supplier from the very beginning. It is a fact that the consumption of meat in Spanish households has decreased, from 53 to 47 kilos, and that all the subcategories of foods with vegetable proteins are growing, this is also what retail is seeing. "We have a learning curve, product standardization, we are good at scalability, food safety and traceability, we have a relationship with distribution channels and an installed capacity," he said, but perhaps there is a lack of organizational design, open collaborative models, a communication policy , a partnership with start ups ...
After the introduction of Àlex Brossa, Cluster Manager of the Packaging Cluster, Aida Cierco, responsible for sustainability at Food de Klockner Pentaplast: "We have a holistic vision of sustainability, focused on three areas: our people, our operations and our products, designer for the circular economy and with sustainable materials."
For Klockner Pentaplast, with its products, the priority is to ensure food safety, reduce food waste, design for a circular economy, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, provide operational efficiency and create shared value. “We have a positive commitment to plastics, based on four pillars: innovate (do more with less), accelerate (maximize the use of sustainable materials), educate (promote the value of plastic waste) and activate (drive a change to great scale)".
Then Aida Cierco explained the legislative framework: the EU plastics strategy and the SUP Directive, which aims to prevent and reduce the impact that certain plastic products have on the environment, in particular in the aquatic environment and the human health, as well as promoting a transition to a circular economy through models of sustainable innovation, products and materials, contributing efficiently to the internal functioning of the market.
In recent years, Klockner Pentaplast has used 260.000 tonnes of post-consumer rPET. Increasing the use of recycled plastic materials is a key part of its development plan along with investment in R&D of new materials and recycling techniques.
Round table
After the break, there was an interesting round table moderated by Sergi Escuriet from the company Lubrizol, in which they participated: Esther Carreras, from La Fageda; Ignacio Martos, from Dunes; Pere Coll, from Plater; Victòria Ferrer, from Gremi of Recovery of Catalonia, and Marta Álvarez, from Areas.
"Sustainability is synonymous with social responsibility, trying to build a better world and is the origin of La Fageda," said Esther Carreras. In the first quarter of 2020, they will launch yogurts with 500 ml cardboard containers and, for two months, they have been selling yogurt in bulk in a biodegradable container to several stores in Catalonia. In addition, they are working on reducing the weight of packaging by more than 10%, which means 60 tons per year of plastic reduction, and they have published a sustainability report for ten years, among many other actions.
For Ignacio Martos, "sustainability is the choice of raw material, production in factories and the product cycle." He also commented that they prefer to talk more about compostability because "the word biodegradable is used a bit lightly today."
Pere Coll explained that Enplater has a line of products that are all recyclable “if we propose them to be so; converters have to make it easy for customers ”and he specified that they are working on monomaterial packaging so they can have better recycling. In addition, he affirmed that "plastic is wonderful", defending it: "according to the life cycle analysis, there is no other type of flexible packaging that is better in terms of sustainability than plastic", explaining that other materials, such as aluminum and glass, need more energy to recycle, and sometimes it is even impossible to recycle a product in which different materials have been mixed together.
In this regard, Victòria Ferrer spoke of the brick, which, being made up of several layers of materials, is not sustainable: "for every kilo of brick, 1 kilo of rejection is generated that goes to the landfill." "The way is monomaterials" and, coinciding with Pere Coll, explained that "monomaterial PET can give 100% recyclability."
Marta Álvarez cited plastic cutlery as an example of products that are difficult to replace: “we are trying to go back to stainless steel, but it creates problems (a space is needed for washing, etc.” Then there are products that the consumer does not know where to recycle them like the 'paper cups', for hot drinks, which are covered on the inside so they cannot be put in the paper container.
After questions from the attendees, the event ended with a drink and some appetizers.
