Beverage Cartons: Efficient and Sustainable

© FKN/Tetra Pak

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A responsible approach to the environment has good prospects. While the percentage of mineral water and beer filled in PET bottles is rising on a global scale the latest analyses confirm that beverage cartons cause fewer costs for retailers than the popular bottles. Other benefits are the climate protection and environmental aspects: more and more consumers are discovering beverage cartons as an alternative.

According to estimates of the market research institute Euromonitor in London the number of PET containers produced in 2009 will rise to 350 billion units (2006: 288 billion). This corresponds to an annual growth of approximately 7%. This means PET bottles are still highly trendy when it comes to filling single-use containers. However, consumers increasingly worry about sustainability issues – and for many fossil energy sources are simply no longer in sync with our zeitgeist.

Lower costs for retailers

Beverage cartons also cause fewer costs to retailers than the popular PET bottles. This was found by the EHI Retail Institute in a recent study: Commissioned by the Tetra Pak company EHI has analysed the processes involved in beverage handling in retail. The study aimed to identify the expenses incurred in the various handling processes associated with beverage ranges allocating the relevant costs to each type of packaging. The focus was on the 1 litre and 1.5 litre packaging sizes for beverage cartons and the corresponding single-use and reusable PET containers.

The analysis covered all jobs required for packaging handling at the PoS such as incoming goods, empties processing, share of costs for storage and depreciation for all beverage-related store fittings, to name but a few aspects. The bottom line of the EHI analysis was that carton packaging is the most inexpensive alternative with the lowest costs per retail unit. Carton packaging, however, already enjoys a competitive edge because it has been recognised as being especially environmentally friendly and therefore exempted from the obligation to charge deposits in Germany. It is primarily the process costs associated with managing the empties that make PET packaging alternatives so expensive. After automated receipt of the single-use bottles these are generally shredded or stored in plastic bags. Return packaging also requires more process steps for taking back the goods. The number of steps grows in line with the growing number of bottle types and crate formats. Furthermore, there is no take-back of beverage cartons since consumers already dispose of them at home. Another factor driving costs is the number of multi-packs per pallet. Pallets are the carrier of choice for transport and presentation today. Due to their rectangular ashlar shape cartons are easier to stack than bottles. Apart from the process costs, goods display and environmental compatibility also influence the decision between carton packaging or single-use and returnable systems.

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Hit in terms of sustainability<7b>

According to data from the Association Carton Packaging for Liquid Foodstuffs (Fachverband Kartonverpackungen für flüssige Nahrungsmittel e.V. or FKN for short) the recycling of beverage cartons produces 20% less greenhouse gas than the incineration for recovery of energy in a waste incineration plant: “Therefore, last year 53,000 t of CO2 less were released into the atmosphere. Extrapolating this for the approx. 2 million tons of beverage cartons recycled since the launch of the “Duales System” this adds up to over 700,000 tons of CO2 savings”.

So, as sustainability role models, do beverage cartons also stand to become a big hit in beverage filling? Tetra Pak launched a broad-based awareness-raising campaign to inform consumers about the currently unrivalled environmental friendliness of beverage cartons. Since September last year consumers have been able to find a variety of ad motifs on more than 300 million Tetra Pak–packs produced for private labels that point to the environmental benefits of this type of packaging; e.g. the fact that it predominantly consists of renewable raw materials and is 100% recyclable. “We wish to give consumers a hand when it comes to making purchasing decisions guided by climate and environment compatibility,” says Dr. Heike Schiffler, Communication and Environment Director at the German-Swiss Tetra Pak-Group. The campaign is designed to make shoppers understand that they can make an active contribution to climate and environmental protection with the right choice of beverage packaging.

2008 even saw Elopak conclude a partnership agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Norway. Here the focus is also on cutting carbon dioxide emissions: by cooperating with the WWF the company undertook to reduce its CO2 emissions by 15% by 2010.

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