Research On The Waste Packaging

Based on Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC provided by European Parliament and of the Council, waste definition is that “any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard” [1]. In a similar manner, once a thing is seen as valueless, its owner may dispose to waste containers and going further to end-of-life treatment sites such as buried to landfills. From single view of waste generated from households, waste composition is diverse including many types such as paper, carton, glass, metal, food and plastic waste. If those recyclables are mismanaged, raw material extracted from natural resources to produce them that can be depleted. Therefore, domestic waste is main target object for consideration within this research.

There are two categorizes of domestic waste divided by geography. For those discarded items have been generated among cosmopolitan areas, it will be headed as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). For those one has been yield within countryside, it can be considered as Rural Solid Waste (RSW). The Directive 94/62/EC [2] shows that packaging can be considered as “all products made of any materials of any nature to be used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery and presentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods, from the producer to the user or the consumer”. A packaging material would become waste packaging that is covered by Directive 2008/98/EC mentioned above. Management of packaging and waste packaging can reduce environmental impacts. Nowadays, almost waste packaging contains high percentage of recyclable content such as plastic, which shall be treated properly in order to return them into valuable secondary material.

Classification and material

a. Classification based on hazardous or non-hazardous typeIn order to classify plastic waste packaging, the Industry guidance to evaluate as well as classify waste packaging [3] as waste or not and, if it is a waste, it would be classified as hazardous or non-hazardous waste packaging. Therefore, the guidance provides a flowchart as a method to assess and classify an after-use packaging, which encompasses many type of packaging such as boxes, bottles, containers, varying from bags, drums and so on, together with consideration of its residual content. This classification method could spend time but it is also determined which packaging should become a waste and whether it is hazardous waste or not, this point of view prevents mismanaged between hazardous or non-hazardous waste packaging and optimize cost to apply end-of-life treatment for right waste packaging type. For plastic waste packaging, initially, a packaging is waste packaging when it is aligned with the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC mentioned at section

On same way, a packaging is rejected to use again and discarded that will be a waste packaging. Nevertheless, a packaging is returnable or reusable, then it cannot be seen as waste. A reusable packaging which means it is effectively empty or designed to reusable, or even intended to be reused. Once a packaging is non-reusable, it is classified as waste and then checked continuously whether it is contaminated or residual free or not; if no, it is grouped as non-hazardous waste packaging; if yes, it is go to next assessment step. In the case of packaging is not empty, it shall be classified based on the content inside rather than packaging itself. However, a packaging is removed from residual, so it is assessed as effectively empty, then it is classified based on two options according to eliminated residual content. A residual content is non-hazardous substance, those waste packaging is non-hazardous, in contrast, those waste packaging is hazardous one. The industry assessment and classification of waste packaging has illustrated a way to evaluate and classify based on view of hazardous or non-hazardous.

Classification based on plastic material structureA waste plastic packaging can be classified in another way with regarding to material produced a packaging. This classification approach can help to find a suitable end-of-life treatment and chances of returning them into secondary material will be higher. At the beginning, packaging made by single material such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). But, each material has distinctive advantages and disadvantages that plastic cannot provide an adequate oxygen barrier for some product content such as food for example. Therefore, ideal packaging has been made by many layers of different material for utilization of advantages in order to satisfy customer demand of containing in a sufficiency manner. A packaging, hence, can be classified into polyolefin (PO) for those packaging which is made by biggest share of a plastic type and thereof or multi layered packaging (MLP) for those which is made by many material and there is no any material that is predominant [4 – 2/26].

• Polyolefin that can encompass low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyamide (PA), and so on [4 – 2/26].
• Multilayer packaging: A MLP can help to decrease the amount of material use by adding a quantity of layers [4 page2/26], which reduce cost for production. Moreover, a MLP structure combines many material leading to its performance for packaging is optimal rather than a polyolefin. For multi layered packaging (MLP), the GVM (Association of Packaging Market Research) [5], separate MLP films into five categories of those MLP contain higher 50% polymer content and this MLP has no paper:
• Simple multilayer that is flexible plastic and it does not have barrier layer
• A flexible plastic and plastic compound with a barrier layer of organic.
• A flexible plastic with coating of metallized plastic film such as AlOx or SiOx
• Thermoformed plastic and plastic compound
• Plastic and plastic compound with Al foil

Usually, a multilayer packaging is constituted from two to five layers. Each layer takes place different function by different material types. For two-layer packaging that has an inner layer faces directly with product, and an outer layer. The inner one obviously play as a sealant layer to cover completely content inside, whereas the outer layer may be as a coating to convey communication and or decoration, this secondary layer can be used as abrasive resistance or barrier to outside environment. It cannot fail to mention about three-layer films, which is more flexible than two-layer one. A primary layer that facing the content still owns sealing ability. For outer layer, which may provide function of moisture or heat barrier, abrasion resistance, printability etc. One more layer stay between as center one may be additional function as improving stiffness or even oxygen barrier made by metallization layer.

Moreover, the center layer may be an adhesive to connect the inner layer and outer layer together and improving durability in case of combining two varying material that is hard to self-sticking. At last, there is a five-layer packaging due to needed adhesive of three different materials for must-have functions for specific the content inside. In this case, the center one may be contacted with two adhesive layer and hold with the inner and outer one for far more durable. Additionally, there is another type of multilayer packaging that is LPBs standing for liquid packaging board. This LPB is usually used for beverage packaging such as milk, juice. A LPB may be structured of 75% cardboard, 21% PE, and 4% of aluminum [4 – page. 5/26]. Therein, layer of cardboard may take role of stability, layer of PE may provide moisture barrier as inner layer, and aluminum film may prevent oxygen or other gas pervaded.