The more we can communicate the overall sustainability of packaging, the better it will be perceived by the public. It's useful to start with some figures from regions where packaging is not readily available: in developing countries, a lack of packaging or inadequate packaging causes 30-50% of food to decay before it reaches consumers, according to a report by the German Packaging Institute.

This corresponds with World Health Organisation figures and contrasts with Western Europe, where only 2-3% of food fails to reach the consumer.

Studies have shown that in Mexico, where most food is prepared at home and the trimmings go to waste, households generate on average 40% more waste than those in the US, where processed foods are common and the offcuts go, for example, into animal feed.

A US Chamber of Commerce report found that a 1% increase in packaging produces a 1.6% reduction in food waste. So how does that compare with Western Europe?

Pira International and the University of Brighton have compared waste generated by ready meal preparation with that of home-prepared food. In ready meal production, preparation waste is reused and distribution waste is less than 1%. For a similar meal prepared at home, 10-20% of the ingredients will have been wasted in distribution, even before considering the waste from home preparation.

Rotting apples
A similar difference in waste levels between unpackaged and packaged produce was shown in an ERM study for Marks & Spencer. This found that the overall waste from packaged apples, including consumer waste, was 135kg per tonne, compared with 185.9kg per tonne from loose apples. The study also showed that an increase in point-of-sale packaging does not necessarily result in more waste or in higher energy consumption across the life cycle.

There are fewer studies on product losses outside the food area, but a Pira report in 2003 estimated that over 2% of the total value of products within the sector was being lost.

How then do you establish how much packaging is justified to meet sustainability goals? An STFI-Packforsk study in 2000, which included plots of product loss against increasing packaging specification, established that an optimum point of energy consumption can be determined where the total energy used between product loss and packaging use is at a minimum. That is in itself a fair definition of sustainability.

Taking this into account, we can see the proposed ‘no-packaging’ solution is not the way to achieve sustainability, and could have the opposite effect.

There are huge gains to be made in less-developed markets in protecting and preserving products, which will improve health, hygiene, quality of life and cut the use of scarce resources.

These are benefits that we in the UK have become so accustomed to that we no longer notice them. There are many other aspects to packaging sustainability, but this is one that can be proclaimed from the rooftops.