Characteristics of meat packaging materials and their environmental suitability assessment

Abstract

After the functional phase, packaging becomes waste that is recycled or disposed of in landfills. Recently, numerous packages have been developed for assessing the packaging risk on the environment. We applied GaBi 4 Education software on polymer product packaging for meat products. The objective of the first part of the paper was characterization of materials used for meat and meat products packaging in terms of mechanical and barrier properties. The results showed that the tested materials were able to keep a protective atmosphere and contribute to the quality and sustainability of the product. Air permeability was 3.60 and 26.60 ml m-2/24 h, and water vapor permeability was 6.90 and 9.50 ml m-2/24 h, respectively, for foils 1 and 2, as a result of different film composition. In the second part, based on real data, GaBi 4 Education software was applied. The obtained results showed that organic compounds emissions had the highest impact on human health and the most damaging environmental impact observed was the emission of CO2.