Barrier Design for the future - two steps forward one step back

摘要

Packaging regularly comes under the spotlight for both positive and negative reasons. I think that most people would agree that wasting less food because of being able to keep it longer is one of the positives. However there is a growing voice that argues that packaging should be minimised to reduce the carbon footprint as well as reducing the quantity of material ending up as landfill. Packaging technology continues to develop and the number of different options in constructing the packaging continues to increase. This does not make the decisions for what packaging material to use any easier. In this paper I will try to highlight some of the packaging problems that have been addressed in recent times and show how some of the changes have solved one problem but may have created another one.