24 Green plastics for food packaging J.J. de vlieger, TNO Industrial Technology, The Netherlands 24.1 Introduction: the problem of plastic packaging waste Polymers and plastics are typical materials of the last century and have made a tremendous growth of some hundreds of tons/year at the beginning of the 1930s to more than 150 million tons/year at the end of the 20th century with 220 million tons forecast by 2005. Western Europe will account for 19% of that amount. Today, the use of plastic in European countries is 60kg/person/year, in the US 80kg/person/year and in countries like India 2kg/person/year. The basic materials used in packaging include paper, paperboard, cellophane, steel, glass, wood, textiles and plastics. Total consumption of flexible packaging grew by 2.9% per year during 1992-1997, with the strongest growth in processed food and above average growth in chilled foods, fresh foods, detergents and pet foods Plastics allow packaging to perform many necessary tasks and provide thereby important properties such as strength and stiffness, barrier to gases, moisture and grease, resistance to food component attack and flexibility. Plastics used in food packaging must have good processability and be related to the melt flow behaviour and the thermal properties. Furthermore, these plastics should have excellent optical properties in being highly transparent(very important for the consumer)and possess good sealabilty and printing properties. In addition, legislation and consumers demand essential information about the content of the Compared to the total amount of waste generated in for example the EU packaging accounts for only a small part, about 3%. Nevertheless, the actual total amount of packaging waste in Europe is still at least 61 million tons pe year and this amount has a big impact regarding the waste streams produced by households. In the Netherlands the fraction of plastics in municipal waste is24.1 Introduction: the problem of plastic packaging waste Polymers and plastics are typical materials of the last century and have made a tremendous growth of some hundreds of tons/year at the beginning of the 1930s to more than 150 million tons/year at the end of the 20th century with 220 million tons forecast by 2005. Western Europe will account for 19% of that amount. Today, the use of plastic in European countries is 60kg/person/year, in the US 80kg/person/year and in countries like India 2kg/person/year.1 The basic materials used in packaging include paper, paperboard, cellophane, steel, glass, wood, textiles and plastics. Total consumption of flexible packaging grew by 2.9% per year during 1992–1997, with the strongest growth in processed food and above average growth in chilled foods, fresh foods, detergents and pet foods. Plastics allow packaging to perform many necessary tasks and provide thereby important properties such as strength and stiffness, barrier to gases, moisture, and grease, resistance to food component attack and flexibility.2 Plastics used in food packaging must have good processability and be related to the melt flow behaviour and the thermal properties. Furthermore, these plastics should have excellent optical properties in being highly transparent (very important for the consumer) and possess good sealabilty and printing properties. In addition, legislation and consumers demand essential information about the content of the product. Compared to the total amount of waste generated in for example the EU, packaging accounts for only a small part, about 3%. Nevertheless, the actual total amount of packaging waste in Europe is still at least 61 million tons per year and this amount has a big impact regarding the waste streams produced by households. In the Netherlands the fraction of plastics in municipal waste is 24 Green plastics for food packaging J.J. de Vlieger, TNO Industrial Technology, The Netherlands