Food packaging in the circular economy: Overview of chemical safety aspects for commonly used materials

TLDR

Food packaging is essential for food preservation and waste prevention, yet its high production volume, short usage life, and waste‑management challenges raise environmental concerns, prompting a focus on circular‑economy strategies and the need to assess the chemical safety of recycled materials. The article aims to examine the chemical safety of recycled food packaging, review common migrants and mitigation strategies, and discuss recycling’s role within the broader circular economy. The authors describe recycling processes for common packaging materials (plastics, paper, aluminum, steel, multilayer cartons) and outline typical migrants and mitigation approaches. While recycling can reduce packaging’s environmental impact, it may also elevate hazardous chemical levels that can migrate into food.

Abstract

Food packaging facilitates storage, handling, transport, and preservation of food and is essential for preventing food waste. Besides these beneficial properties, food packaging causes rising concern for the environment due to its high production volume, often short usage time, and problems related to waste management and littering. Reduction, reuse, and recycling, but also redesign support the aims of the circular economy. These tools also have the potential to decrease the environmental impact of food packaging. In this article, we focus on chemical safety aspects of recycled food packaging, as recycling is currently seen as an important measure to manage packaging waste. However, recycling may increase the levels of potentially hazardous chemicals in the packaging and -after migration- in the food. Since exposure to certain chemicals migrating from food packaging has been associated with chronic diseases, it is of high importance to assess the safety of recycled packaging. Therefore, we describe recycling processes of commonly used food packaging materials, including plastics, paper and board, aluminum, steel, and multimaterial multilayers (e.g., beverage cartons). Further, we give an overview of typical migrants from all types of recycled food packaging materials, and summarize approaches to reduce chemical contamination. We discuss the role of food packaging in the circular economy, where recycling is only one of many complementary tools for providing environmentally-friendly and safe food packaging.