COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT OF INFANT FORMULA PACKAGING CONTAINERS : A CRADLE-TO-GATE PLUS END-OF-LIFE LCA USING FULL AND STREAMLINED SOFTWARE

Life cycle assessment (LCA) in the packaging industry is often centered around designing packages with the lowest environmental footprint (EF) by adjusting the design and prioritizing modeling end-of-life (EoL) scenarios. A LCA study was conducted comparing three packaging systems to deliver infant formula, including primary (plastic-package 1, composite-package 2, and steel container-package 3), secondary (corrugated box), and tertiary (pallet) packaging levels, all manufactured and distributed in North America. The goal was to inform a company of the footprint of the containers. The project involved quantifying the environmental impacts of each system, which could guide decision-making regarding which system would have the lowest EF. Additionally, it involved evaluating the effect of modeling choices and interpreting trade-offs among environmental impact for business decisions. The functional unit was defined as the packaging needed to deliver 1,000g of infant formula from cradle-to-gate, plus the EoL. Complete modeling of the three packages and the recycling procedures was done using SimaPro 9.3.03 with TRACI 2.1 V1.06 Midpoint and ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) V1.06 impact methods and compared with PackageSmart software. The LCA was conducted according to ISO 14040/14044 standards. EoL modeling included the cut-off method, 50/50 allocation, and circular footprint formula (CFF). The stochastic multi-attribute analysis (SMAA) method was implemented to evaluate trade-offs between indicators in all cases. In both software tools, the primary container had the most significant contribution for the three systems for all categories evaluated. Adjusting the EoL models influences the results regarding the preferred packaging systems; however, contributions in each category vary slightly from the highest or lowest package footprints in all recycling models. With the cut-off EoL methodology, the highest impact was found in 4 of the 10 impact categories for Package 1, in 2 of the 10 categories for Package 2, and in the remaining 4 categories for Package 3. With 50/50 allocation and CFF EoL methodologies, different conclusions were reached about the preferred package; however, the ranking preference from SMAA across the recycling methods indicates that the plastic container is preferred, with the lowest EF with more than 50% probability.