Despite the emerging presence of bio-based plastics in beverage and food packaging, the aluminium industry says that it is the consumer, and not renewable materials, which is the key to addressing sustainability.

Guido Winsel, communications director of the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA) told BeverageDaily.com at this year's Interpack trade show that consumers needed to be encouraged to look at reducing their own impact on the food production cycle.

The EAFA said that it was now considering possible ways it can work with the industry to better engage and directly inform consumers of areas that they can cut their own environmental impacts.

Winsel also played down concerns over possible competition from renewably-sourced packaging materials, suggesting that bioplastic innovation would offer metal packagers and processors new ways of reducing environmental impacts.

While the aluminium packaging industry is coming under growing pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations, groups like the EAFA claim that packaging is being harshly attacked by both pressure groups and government.

Despite these claims though, while environmental groups generally support measures to increase consumer responsibility, they also believe that there is more for the food and drinks industry to do in terms of packaging reduction.

Green responsibility

While accepting that the packagers, processors and governments all have to pull their weight in dealing with packaging waste and recycling issues, Winsel claimed that for some consumers, the environmentally sustainability buck stopped at the supermarket shelf and not at the home.

"Raising awareness of the role of the consumer is vital for improving sustainability, like in the amount of energy being used to prepare or even heat food, to water use in a cup of coffee," he stated. "People should not be inhibited in living their lives, but there is a need for consumers to be resource efficient along with packagers and processors."

Part of the problem, according to Winsel, is that consumers and governments are naturally disposed to think that packaging, particularly when using metals, is bad and wasteful.

Winsel suggested that food packagers and material suppliers in particular were being put under tremendous pressure to find news means of reducing their environmental impact.

"Packaging is vital to consumer products, both as a means of attracting a consumer and protecting goods in side," he stated. "We still have to ask is there more that can be done from our end?"

Lifecycle testing

The EAFA beleives that the negative impact of packaging on the environment is often exaggerated as a result, claims it says are now backed by recent Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) that have been commissioned by the association itself.

In testing conducted by ESU-services on Aluminium-based 2g stick packs of instant coffee, the report found that the impact of packaging on the eco-system was not as significant compared to the brewing process or milk production.

"Packaging is not considered to be of primary importance for this type of product," the test stated.

Nonetheless, the report suggested that minimisation measures like removing an outside carton for coffee stick packaging as well as more adequate packaging sizes were a key area ahead.

Similar studies into butter production also yielded similar results, according to the EAFA.

Environmental response

While not specifically commenting on the EAFA's claims, Environmental group the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told BeverageDaily.com that it believed that consumers did have a responsibility along with processors and packagers to ensure the industry operates in a sustainable manner.

"Industry and consumers have a joint responsibility to drive the sustainable production and consumption of food, using the least amount of packaging, energy, water and other resources while creating the least amount of waste," a spokesperson stated. "We must consume food fairly for the good of people and nature and in a way that is manageable within our ecological limits, thus moving rapidly to a one planet future."

Friends of the Earth (FoE), another environmental organisation, also welcomed any industry measures to encourage more sustainable environmental attitudes.

However, the pressure group claimed that packaging was nonetheless a significant contributor to climate pollution, and that a focus on generating less overall waste products should be encouraged.

Government focus

While FoE accepted that there has been a significant shift in recent years in the amount of recycling in consumer packaging products from materials like aluminium, it added that food and beverage processors still have more work to do.

The environmental group added that it was therefore calling on the EU to maintain waste production at 2008 levels by 2012, while also reducing industrial, construction and demolition waste by 70 per cent by 2020.

In addition, 50 per cent of household waste should also be recycled by the same year, as part of the FoE proposals.