Food Polymeric Packaging Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Abstract

Food packaging is used to maintain the safety and quality of food during distribution and storage and to protect them from adverse internal and external conditions, such as water vapor, spoilage due to microorganisms, moisture, light, and dust. In this regard, lots of research studies have been done to increase shelf life, safety, and quality to create suitable physicochemical conditions for food (Othman et al., 2014). The use of polymers in the preparation of food packaging materials has increased greatly due to advantages, such as strength, oxygen/moisture barrier power and flexibility compared to traditional materials. Polymers commonly used for food packaging include polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene terephthalate, and polystyrene. But the environmental problems of these materials have encouraged us to use biopolymers in industry. Biopolymers are polymeric materials that are naturally degraded by the metabolism of organisms. Biopolymers can be divided into natural biopolymers, synthetic biodegradable polymers and microbial polyesters. Starch as a biodegradable polymer in combination with other materials is used to reduce the inherent weaknesses of this natural polymer, leading to its further development in various industries, especially the packaging industry (Sadeghizadeh-Yazdi et al., 2019). Also, the use of nanoparticles in food packaging has chemical and thermal stability, recyclability, mechanical resistance, biodegradation, heat resistance, antimicrobial activity, and the ability to perceive and signal biochemical changes (Bajpai et al., 2018, Bathla et al., 2015, Sharma et al., 2017).