Sustainable Packaging Learns
A Great Deal From Child's Play
By Wendy Jedlicka and Fran Kurk
Close scrutiny of children's toys and food packaging is helping drive sustainability awareness in the packaging industry. This candy necklace "toy" contained mercury batteries to make it light up.
We are all aware of the physical dangers packaging can pose to children. Plastic bags that can suffocate and serrated edge strips for food wraps are part of every new parent's childproofing "To Do" list. But what about the makeup of the package itself?
In 2004, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) notified retailers and consumers that the store display boxes for a brand of Lite-Up candy necklaces and rings contained circuitry with lead solder in excess of Connecticut's Toxics in Packaging laws. The manufacturer issued a voluntary recall notice to their customers and removed the product, including the non-compliant display boxes, from store shelves across the United States.
Taking action with packaging
In an article from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection news, DEP commissioner Gina McCarthy said: "Although the products sold in the boxes appear to be safe, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers also have to be conscious of potential health and environmental hazards that packaging, especially packaging for children's toys, may contain."
In addition to the concerns circuitry in this type of novelty food packaging or displays pose, many states have gone further to ensure mercury batteries are also not part of the mix (for instance, Pennsylvania's Clean Air Council is calling for a change). Safer alternatives to mercury batteries already exist. Novelty packaging using mercury batteries pose not only an immediate potential danger to children, but there is a greater societal danger of migration of the mercury or lead after disposal of these products.
Mercury and lead are bio-accumulating toxins that are associated with learning disabilities and developmental problems, and especially dangerous to children. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, one in six women in the United States has a level of mercury in her blood that is considered unsafe for fetuses. This translates into over 630,000 children born nationwide at risk from mercury exposure.
The novelty may wear off
Novelty packaging is certainly not one of the biggest offenders in the general scheme of things, and the pitfalls are easily avoided (don't stick food in your Lite-Up toy product, and vice versa). But as we learn more about the interactions between food and packaging, new concerns are surfacing.
As part of their action list, the Australian group Allergy, Sensitivity & Environmental Health Association Qld Inc. is advising parents to "Be aware that food packaging such as plastic containers, plastic wraps, plastic lined tins, and take-away food packaging contribute to the toxic body burden." And the National Toxics Network Australia website notes: "The unique vulnerability of children to hazardous chemicals is now well-recognized by both the United Nations and the World Health Organizations, and international programs are now trying to address this problem."
PVC is good example of a substrate no longer considered an option by many food producers around the world, and is also being removed from the substrate options list of major consumer goods companies like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, InGEAR, and Johnson & Johnson. Slowly, other product and packaging categories are being looked at more closely as well. Under debate right now is the safety of polycarbonate water bottles, which are popular for their cool colors and lack of plastic taste.
It is too soon to tell what the final outcomes of these studies will be, but the ripple effects of these investigations are staggering. A significant percentage of today's foods come either wholly or partially packaged in plastic. The opportunities found in using plastics for packaging have afforded modern society incredible advantages for food distribution, storage, diversity, and price.
As manufacturers introduce new products to the market, they are looking at the long-term health of their brand and the long-term health of their customer simultaneously. They are starting to take a hard look at not only old, safe, and proven favorites like glass, but new substrates made from plants, like PLA (from corn) and Earthshell (from potatoes). Food packaging made from edible things—it's so simple, it's almost child's play.
ONLINE SUSTAINABLITITY RESOURCES
For more information on these issues, visit:
Wendy Jedlicka, CPP, is president of Jedlicka Design Ltd. (jedlicka.com), is chapter chair for o2-USA/Upper Midwest and liaison for the o2 Global Green Design Network (o2.org), and is on the packaging and economics faculty for Minneapolis College of Art and Design's groundbreaking Sustainable Design Certificate Program (online.mcad.edu).
Fran Kurk is pollution prevention team leader at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, member o2-USA/Upper Midwest, and Design for the Environment faculty for Minneapolis College of Art and Design's Sustainable Design Certificate Program (online.mcad.edu).
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