PACKAGING AND ENVIRONMENT

Environmental issues are crucial for the packaging sector not only due to the role they play in packaged product development and quality preservation, but also to their participation in the municipal solid waste.

The purpose of CETEA's Packaging and Environment Area is to provide consistent technical information on the topic as well as to assess environmental performance of packaging systems and packaged products to foster ongoing improvement of Packaging & Environment relation.

 
 
Life Cyle Assessment - LCA
 

CETEA developed the first Packaging Life Cycle Assessment Project for the Brazilian market (1997-99) in partnership with a consortium of Associations and Organizations and with the support of FAPESP. The project had the purpose of conducting studies on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of 13 packaging systems, considering the technological reality and the resources available in the country.


It was a groundbreaking project in Brazil not only for collecting and analyzing national data related to the packaging Life Cycle Assessment of highly commercialized products, but also for bringing together different sectors of the packaging production industry sharing the same ideal of building the technological capability to conduct LCA studies of packaging in Brazil. Of course it necessarily included the designing of Database on LCA -related modeling for electric energy generation and distribution of public grid, load transportation and post-consumer solid waste management.

Other LCA studies are being carried out at CETEA related both to packaging and packaged foods additionally serving the purpose of updating the basic Databases (electricity, transportation and solid waste management).
 
Main Applications
 
  • To create records of environmental data.

  • To quantify the environmantal effects to improve the product from an environmental point of view.

  • To provide support to decision-making process by quantifying the environmental benefits.

  • To generate databases for Environmental Labelling according to ISO 14020 series, especially Type I and Type III.

  • To determine the critical points in particular steps of the supply chain and advise on improvement opportunities for enhanced environmental performance.

  • To provide technical support for educational programs and environmental awareness LCA Studies.
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Degradation is not the solution for the Solid Waste (pdf)
The CETEA "LCA" research makes possible a wide vision of the product interfaces with the environment and shows the necessity of Public Policies that contribute for the Sustainable Consumption, Environmental Education and Integrated Management of the Solid Waste. In this context, "myths and facts" are argued on the basis of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of products.




Publicação Digital (pdf)
The publication Avaliação do Ciclo de Vida (ACV) como Instrumento de Gestão was written with the aim of disclosing LCA as management technology for environmental improvement of products and processes in the Brazilian market.






Article (pdf)
The generation and distribution of electric energy in Brazil was modeled based on Life Cycle Assessment Technique - LCA, in agreement with the statements of the ISO 14040 Standard, and its Life Cycle Inventory was published in the paper "Life Cycle Inventory for Electric Energy System in Brazil ".