Packaging is essential to reducing environmentally harmful food waste, says the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI).
Corrugated sector manager Andrew Barnetson said: “Products need protecting. In the UK, waste due to product damage is under three per cent. In less developed parts of the world it can be as high 40 per cent or more. This is significant because food wastage has ten times greater environmental impact than its packaging.”
CPI says corrugated packaging comes from sustainable forests that help to increase tree numbers and estimates that there are 25 per cent more trees in the developed world today than there were in 1901.
However, to keep environmental harm to a minimum, packaging should be recyclable. Barnetson said: “Only three per cent of landfill waste is due to packaging. In the corrugated industry, more than 84 per cent of all packaging is being recycled.”
