PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2020

PACKAGING / PALLETISING PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 05/20 www.petpla.net 15 motivate customers to bring their own shopping bag or basket to the supermarket. Anyone wishing to purchase such a bag for multiple-use may do so at the checkout; popular are, e.g., bags made of plastic nonwoven. For spontaneous purchases, bags made of recycled plastic are partly offered; however, in the single-use sector, plastic is increas- ingly replaced with (recycled) paper. “My common sense tells me: paper instead of plastic” is the catchy advertising slogan on Rewe’s shopping bags with which the group serves a common preju- dice. In reality, it is doubt- ful whether paper bags are indeed the better alterna- tive. Paper may have the reputation of being a natural, eco-friendly material, but from an ecological point of view, paper carrier bags do not perform better, but actu- ally worse than their plastic counterparts. This is mainly due to the fact that the pro- duction of paper carrier bags is very energy - and water- intensive; in addition, chemi- cals such as cooking liquor or bleaching agents are used which pollute the environ- ment. Moreover, paper bags are poorly suited for mul- tiple uses, as they are not particularly tear-resistant and unable to withstand higher levels of moisture. So while waste avoid- ance and multiple uses are good and important meas- ures, simply replacing plastic with paper does not con- stitute an improvement, as long as the carrier bags are disposed of in a responsible way. Incidentally, the winner of the Life Cycle Assess- ment of the Swiss materials research institute EMPA is the carrier bag made of more than 80% recycled plastic; to achieve the same value per use, a paper bag would have to be used 7.4 times. The cotton bag achieved the worst rating, owing to the high environmental impact of cotton production. Refillable glass- bottles or PET recycling? PET bottles are just perfect for the transport of beverages: they are light, flexible and some of them already consist of 100% recycled material (e.g., the mineral water bottles from Austrian beverage producers Römerquelle and Vöslauer). A life cycle analysis commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment shows that the 1.5 l PET bottle has the best balance of all mineral water bottles tested – only tap water with soda stream is more environmentally friendly. The glass bottle per- forms less well, as its production as well as the melting process require much more energy (lique- faction only from approx. 1,500 degrees, PET bottle from approx. 250 degrees) and its high weight causes considerable CO 2 emis- sions during truck trans- port. While glass bottles account for around 50% of the weight of a truck- load, the maximum share of PET bottles is 10%. The higher weight also affects the transport home from the supermarket: With glass bottles, it is more likely that the consumer will use the car, which in turn generates CO 2 . Even though refillable glass bottles have a better balance than single-use glass bottles, the washing process also has a nega- tive impact on the environ- ment, and weight remains a limiting factor. For the PET bottle, a recycled content of 35% was considered in the analysis – so there is even room for further gains. motan-colortronic gmbh - [email protected] www.motan-colortronic.com Digital service and maintenance from motan – no matter where you are Remote Maintenance Box - the simple and safe solution for digital maintenance and care of all motan CONTROLnet controls.