Analysis Of Orange Juices

666 Words2 Pages

Executive Summary:
1. Introduction
Packaging has always been one of the most important aspect of food supply industry. It helps in labeling of the food item, provides ease of transportation and most importantly aids in preservation of food item for a specific time period. One of the most important food item consumed by most people around the globe are juices. The most consumed juice all over the world in orange juice. Australia lies 9th in the world for the consumption of juice (1). Hence, the concern of various packaging units used for the juices is rising steeply. Significant research is being put into the field to reduce the environmental impacts and costs of the containers.
Amongst the various packaging systems for juices, the ones commonly used in Australia are HDPE containers and carton containers. Hence it becomes quite necessary to keep a track of the consequences of using these containers. In order to evaluate the containers impact on the environment it becomes quite important to have yardstick. Hence Life cycle analysis (LCA) is selected for the same.
LCA is a quantitative evaluation of the environmental performance of a product system across its life cycle (2). This project would focus on analyzing the orange juice containers using the LCA tool. In order to complete the analysis, stepwise approach is taken following general techniques of LCA. There are four phases in LCA which are stated below:
i. Defining the scope and goal of the analysis. ii. Inventory analysis. iii. Evaluation of environmental effects. iv. Interpretation of results.
These following steps are explained in detail in following sections.

2. Goal And Scope
The goal of this study was to assess the potential environmental impacts of various types of oran...

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...nce unit is needed in the LCA called the functional unit (ɸ) . This is important as the inventory would be normalized against this. For the present analysis, the functional unit was defined as a litre bottle, with a standard weight of 20 grams for HDPE and 25 grams for juice cartons.
Inventory Analysis:
HDPE bottles
The HDPE bottles assessed in this study is specifically designed for the distribution of orange juice and is produced from HDPE, with a cap, seal and label. The seal is composed of polyolefin foam, aluminum and PET, and cap from HDPE. The label is produced from LDPE. This composition of the HDPE bottle is considered to be representative of the majority of the HDPE juice bottles currently available in UK Market.

Fig 2: Production of HDPE bottles.

The majority of HDPE bottles for juices currently on the UK market are produced from virgin HDPE (vHDPE).

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