Page 312 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

288 Cha pte r F i f tee n

foodservice establishments. In keeping with its environmental sus-
tainability commitments [2], the company has introduced a number
of technological innovations into its packaging.

• ConAgra Foods’ packaging team for Hunt’s Ketchup worked
with its bottle manufacturer, Constar International, to design
a single-layer PET bottle that is lightweight and easy to recy-
cle (see Figure 15.4). The technology uses an active oxygen
scavenger blended directly into PET in a monolayer struc-
ture. It has a number of advantages over multi-layer PET
including better integrity (no delamination), lower manufac-
turing complexity, and reduced cost. The material is impact-
resistant and naturally colorless with exceptional clarity. It
also provides an excellent barrier against moisture and gases,
assuring long shelf life; and the single-layer design reduces
both resource consumption and environmental impacts. This

in novation was selected by the Institute of Packaging Profes-

sionals to receive the 3M Sustainable Packaging Award for
2007.
• ConAgra Foods is the first company in North America to in -
corporate post-consumer recycled plastic into its frozen meal
trays, which will divert approximately 8 million pounds of
plastic from landfills into the recycling stream annually.
ConAgra Foods has begun to use between 30% and 40% post-
consumer recycled plastic in nearly all of its frozen meal
®
®
®
trays for Healthy Choice , Banquet , Kid Cuisine and Marie
Callender’s products. Most frozen meal trays used by other
®
companies are made of crystallized PET plastic, a material
that uses only newly produced plastics and that requires more
energy and resources to produce.
FIGURE 15.4 Hunt’s ketchup with mono-layer PET bottle
wins sustainable packaging award.