Special Issue "Environmental Sustainability of Packaging"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Univ. Doz. Dr. Manfred Tacker
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Packaging and Resource Management, University of Applied Sciences, Vienna 1030, Austria
Interests: food packaging; food technology; food safety; food microbiology and safety; processing technology; storage; packaging; environmental sustainability
Prof. Dr. Silvia Apprich
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Packaging and Resource Management, University of Applied Sciences, Vienna 1030, Austria
Interests: food packaging; food technology; food safety; food microbiology; processing technology; shelf life; sustainable packaging; environmental sustainability
Prof. Dr. Victoria Krauter
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Packaging and Resource Management, University of Applied Sciences, Vienna 1030, Austria
Interests: food packaging; food science and technology; food microbiology; shelf life; sustainable packaging; circular economy; recycling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The transformation of our economies toward low environmental impacts and circular solutions is on the way. Packaging is at the center of discussion, mainly in the context of the requirements of the circular economy and carbon footprint reduction.

Assessment of environmental sustainability of packaging includes all the above mentioned topics but must include further issues, such as food/product loss and waste, littering, effects on biodiversity and other factors as well to come to an overall assessment. Methods to expand life cycle assessment and recyclability testing for packaging are currently being developed, but there are no generally accepted approaches available at the moment.

This Special Issue aims to collect research papers which examine how these divergent issues could be addressed, in the context of sustainability assessment of packaging to create the methodology as a basis for better environmental decisions.

Within the framework described above, this Special Issue invites authors to contribute with original research in the following fields:

  • Reduction of environmental impacts of packaging;
  • Circularity assessment of packaging;
  • Holistic sustainability assessment of packaging;
  • Recyclability assessment of packaging;
  • Life cycle assessment of packaging;
  • Littering potential of packaging;
  • Dependence of food/product loss and waste by innovative packaging solutions;
  • Case studies in policy change arising from sustainable packaging.

In this Special Issue, the focus will be on assessment methods concerning sustainability of packaging. The research papers should report the theoretical background, methodology, results, analysis, and implications for applications of the outcomes to have a meaningful impact. At the end of the publication process, the guest editor of this Special Issue will provide an editorial to distil the key messages from the presented works into practical guidance points. A special invitation is extended to authors from across the globe so that the specifics of different regions can be addressed.

Univ. Doz. Dr. Manfred Tacker
Prof. Dr. Silvia Apprich
Prof. Dr. Victoria Krauter
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • reduction of environmental impacts
  • circularity assessment
  • holistic sustainability assessment
  • recyclability assessment
  • life cycle assessment
  • littering potential
  • dependence of food/product loss and waste by innovative packaging solutions
  • case studies in policy change arising from sustainable packaging

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Circularity Study on PET Bottle-To-Bottle Recycling
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7370; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137370 - 01 Jul 2021
Viewed by 1011
Abstract
With the European Green Deal, the importance of recycled products and materials has increased. Specifically, for PET bottles, a high content of recycled material (rPET) is demanded by the industry and consumers. This study was carried out in a lab environment replicating real-life [...] Read more.
With the European Green Deal, the importance of recycled products and materials has increased. Specifically, for PET bottles, a high content of recycled material (rPET) is demanded by the industry and consumers. This study was carried out in a lab environment replicating real-life industrial processes, to investigate the possible impacts on rPET quality over eleven recycling loops, aiming to use high amounts of rPET repetitively. A cycle included extrusion, solid state polycondensation (SSP), a second extrusion to simulate bottle production, hot wash and a drying step. 75% rPET and 25% virgin PET were extruded in eleven cycles to simulate a recycling and production process. Samples underwent chemical, physical and biological analysis. The quality of the rPET material was not adversely affected. Parameters such as coloring, intrinsic viscosity, concentration of critical chemicals and presence of mutagenic contaminants could be positively assessed. The quality of the produced material was likely influenced by the input material’s high standard. A closed loop PET bottle recycling process using an rPET content of up to 75% was possible when following the proposed process, indicating that this level of recycled content can be maintained indefinitely without compromising quality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability of Packaging)
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