Milkcartons : ways to reduce the environmental impacts of milkpackage

Abstract

This project is about how we can decreased the environmental impacts caused by milk cartons, manufactured of multylayer material and design alternative solution´s with lesser impacts.The study show how important it is to take the production and recycling process into account during the planning and designing phases of all products and processes.The study is made in two main steps. With help of scenario which were made, the CO2 emission from production, handling and recycling of paper cartons for milk is researched and calculated. The result are shown as carbon footprint in tons of CO2-eq, which is a wellknown scale. Thereafter an alternative method for production and recycling of milk package made of plastic was promoded and similar scenario made for the alternative solution for comperation.The main findings are that by reducing the amount of virgin material used for milk package by recycling used package locally, the CO2 emission can be redused significantly. This is possible by using homogen material which can easiely be kept separate during the collection of used package and is easy and is permitted by authorities. Furthermore, the findings shows that the recycling process, which is an energy demanding process, has lesser environmental influence by recycling with hydropower energy than energy made from fossil fuels.The findings shows that we can reduce the carbon footprint by using different solution than the present one and that applies for many other kind of package. Taking into account all the packaging material disposed or exporded for recycling, it is neccesary for a short time solution to start to recycle domistically but in the near future it is important to start to use reusable package instead of consume package.