From
foil wrappers and household foil to semi-rigid foil containers, lids
and laminated foil pouches, aluminium foil applications offer a
versatile range of packaging solutions to meet today’s sustainability
challenges. The physical properties of aluminium foil, such as the
absolute barrier effect, lead to more protection and longer shelf-lives
for the product contents, as well as better preservation of their
nutritional and health benefits. The net result: less food waste and so
greater resource efficiency. Also, less use of resources results in a
reduction in the overall environmental impact and improved
profitability.
In summary: More efficient packaging ultimately
saves resources or, in other words, More is Less! The following lists
some of the unique characteristics of aluminium foil and gives examples
of how these properties provide resource- and energy-efficient
solutions.
Barrier: Aluminium foil acts as an absolute barrier to
light, gases and moisture providing almost perfect preservation of
aroma, flavour and other product characteristics thus protecting product
quality. It has a highly efficient barrier function to weight ratio,
e.g., for 1 litre of milk packed in a beverage carton, only 1.5 grams of
aluminium is sufficient to allow an ambient shelf-life of several
months.
By enabling useful life of products for extended periods
at room temperature, aluminium foil helps to reduce food waste and then
to save the important resources used to produce the food. This also
provides energy savings as products can be preserved without the need
for refrigeration.
Product to pack ratio: In particular, due to
the absolute barrier property even at very low gauges, aluminium foil
allows for the development of packaging solutions that are both very
efficient and very light. The product to pack ratio of flexible foil
packaging is generally very high, potentially 5 to 10 times higher than
for rigid packaging used for the same application.
High product to
pack ratio means less packaging material is used to protect and deliver
the same quantity of product. This also means less energy to transport
the packaging whether empty or filled. And at the end of life there is
significantly less packaging waste generated
Portion-ability:
Foil’s excellent ability to be used alone or in combination with other
materials (paper and/or plastic) provides flexibility to easily pack the
product (food) into appropriate and convenient portions.
Providing
food in appropriate quantities prevents both over-preparation and
over-consumption which contribute to food wastage. Portioning also
extends the shelf-life of the unprepared food by keeping it packaged and
protected.
Material and space efficiency: Aluminium foil can
efficiently be laminated with other materials to combine specific
properties of several flexible packaging substrates in a complementary
way for an improved overall performance and a very limited overall
amount of material used. The reduced amount of material used in flexible
foil packaging, plus the fact that it is delivered in the form of
rolls, leads to more space efficiency during storage and transportation
and enables further energy and cost savings.
Mechanical
properties: Uniquely light yet strong, foil’s ‘deadfold’ characteristics
allows it to wrap products tightly and without any glue or other
sealing systems.
For household foil for example, the easy wrapping
and reclose-ability helps to prevent food waste through appropriate
protection of the goods at home or on-the-go and the possibility to
efficiently preserve leftovers.
Thermal conductivity: Aluminium is
an excellent conductor of heat and is able to withstand extreme
temperatures. Alufoil is ideal for use in autoclaving, heat-sealing and
other thermal processes (e.g. retort).
Excellent thermal
conductivity minimizes the processing, sealing, chilling and re-heating
times, thus saving energy and also ensuring a better protection of the
organoleptic and nutritional quality of the food by flattening extreme
temperature gradients within the product.
Electrical conductivity: Excellent electrical conductivity of aluminium foil enables high-
precision, contact-free sealing, thus widening the application range
for efficient and fast filling technologies.The presence of aluminium
foil in a packaging facilitates induction and ultrasonic sealing, saving
materials and energy by minimizing the seal area and time.
Reflectivity:
Aluminium foil reflects up to 98% of light and infrared heat. Good heat
reflectivity saves energy during the cooling or heating of in pack
prepared foods.
Multi-mode cooking: The unique combination of
thermal, electrical heat transfer allows food to be cooked or re-heated
by convection or microwave oven and/or in ‘bain marie’ systems. This
flexibility in heating/cooking helps save time and energy during
preparation.
Recyclability: Aluminium material is fully recyclable, endlessly, without any loss of quality. Increasing collection and recycling/recovery rates for aluminium foil and aluminium foil packaging means that an equivalent quantity of primary (i.e. virgin) aluminium will not be required by the industry. This represents a significant energy saving as processing recycled aluminium requires up to 95% less energy than the equivalent quantity of primary metal produced from bauxite.In Europe it is assumed that average recycling rate of all aluminium packaging is above 60%. The amount of aluminium packaging recycled greatly depends on the efficiency of the national packaging collection schemes in each European country. For aluminium foil trays and semi-rigid containers, the latest statistics show that the average recycling rate in Europe reaches about 55% thanks to continued work by the industry to promote the value of collection and recycling of aluminium foil packaging. For foil flexible packs, generally having a lower aluminium content since the packaging is often very thin and frequently laminated with plastics or paper, it is also possible to recover the aluminium from the scraps and reclaim it for closed-loop recycling, using specially developed technologies like pyrolysis. In the situations where aluminium foil packaging is not collected separately for recycling and enters an energy recovery process, a significant proportion of the aluminium in the packaging – even the thin gauge foil – can be collected from the bottom ashes for recycling. The part of aluminium which is oxidized during incineration is releasing energy which is recovered and converted to heat and electricity.
Resource Efficiency of aluminium foil packaging: For a
given product there are often several effective packaging solutions
able to perform the required functions. But some solutions are more
resource efficient than others in that they use less resources.
Because
of the combination of the unique above properties, aluminium foil
packaging supports efficient use of resources and waste minimization
throughout the lifecycle of the packed product. Not only does foil
packaging help to save important food resources by offering optimised
fit-for-purpose solutions with reduced risk of product waste, but it
makes a very efficient use of packaging material over its entire life
cycle.