SUP directive confusing to packaging industry – Professor: ’It attempts to solve a problem it cannot solve’
Definitions in the European Union’s Single-Use Plastics directive cause consternation from the perspective of packagings and plastics based on wood.
Though the EU’s Single-Use Plastics (SUP) has extensive implications on the packagings industry, its main objective should not be seen as opposing the use of plastics, but as reducing litter.
Plastic litter is a particular focus, above all as regards waterways, since it does not decompose in the environment. This is also the source of requirements imposed on packagings.
The directive deals with plastics, but it is also linked to companies producing wood-based packagings because plastics are used as protective layers or barriers in wood-based packagings. In paperboard cups, for example, plastic prevents the cup from becoming soggy. In food packagings, the plastic barrier protects the product from oxygen and the environment from grease in the product.
The directive came into effect in 2019, but several years were allowed to implement it. As an example, the requirement that the caps or lids of soft drink bottles and lids remain attached to the packaging was implemented in Finland in July 2024.
In addition to the new bottle caps, the consumer can see the impact of the directive in that it prohibits the use of several single-use plastic items, such as cutlery, plates, cotton bud sticks, drinking straws, beverage stirrers and the sticks supporting balloons.
In many cases, the items replacing these are wood-based. In fact, the packaging industry says that anything made today of non-renewable materials, including plastics, can be made of wood tomorrow.
Plastics are replaced by wood-based products
The rationale behind the SUP directive is that plastic single-use products should be replaced by products that cause less harm than plastics do when ending up in the environment.
The items mentioned in the directive also include tobacco products with filters and the filters in them – in other words, cigarette butts – as well as wet wipes meant for personal care and for domestic use, plastic sticks to support balloons and certain fishing gear.
As for products not prohibited, the directive requires them to be labelled and recycled. Caps that remain attached are, in principle, required for beverage packagings from which the content will be drunk directly. Despite this, caps of this type are now found even in one-litre milk cartons, which are made of wood.
In addition, the manufacturers and importers of plastic products are required to cover the cost of cleaning up litter from their products to bodies in charge of cleaning public areas; in Finland, these are the municipalities and joint municipal authorities. The same companies must also inform consumers of how to prevent littering.
A jungle of definitions
The directive is undoubtedly well-intentioned, but it has given rise to an enormous number of definitions that confuse the manufacturers of wood-based packagings. What, for example, is a ’product containing plastic’?
’In a product containing plastic, plastic is a main structural component, such as a continuous plastic coating – in other words, a barrier. In contrast, a plastic glue line or printing dye does not make the product a plastic one,’ says Ali Harlin, Research Professor at the Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT.
One possibility that was studied was to set a maximum limit of plastic in a product, and then to define as plastic products only those in which this maximum was exceeded. All other products would be defined as wood-based, for example.
This turned out to be too complicated. The current interpretation is that if there is any plastic at all and certain other conditions are met, the product is a plastic product.
’This turned out to be too complicated. The current interpretation is that if there is any plastic at all and certain other conditions are met, the product is a plastic product,’ says Harlin.
This is a peculiar interpretation.
’Could it also work the other way round? If you stuck a paper label on a plastic bottle, could someone call it a paper product?’ Harlin asks.
Confusing definition of plastic
Another issue is the definition of ’plastic’. This is not a simple thing, though in general, the term has been used for long-chain synthetic molecules, or polymers, which have been combined with additives necessary due to the purpose of use.
Polymers are a varied group, but what is significant here is the division into natural and synthetic polymers. Polymers are natural if they are created in nature and are used or available in precisely the form that they appear in natural environments, such as cellulose and starch. Synthetic polymers, in contrast, are made by humans.
Here, too, the Commission has taken a strict stand: the definition of plastic includes synthetic polymers, but also any natural polymer with even a single molecule added by humans.
A good example is latex, which generally refers to an emulsion of water and rubber, which can be used as a coating by removing the water. The Commission defines this, too, as plastic, even though all previous classifications consider it to be rubber, which is not plastic at all. Latex also behaves in a completely different way from plastics.
On the other hand – and this may be more important with regards to the SUP directive – when getting into the environment, latex does not decompose biologically down to the molecular level, but forms compounds resembling micro plastics, just as rubber does. In actual fact, the SUP directive is based on the fact that all plastics, rubbers and polymeric coatings decompose into micro plastics, which means that all polymers that deviate from natural polymers can be harmful.
Bio-based is not the same as biodegradable
Let us move on to single use. The directive takes no account of package sizes, for example.
’Is a one-litre milk carton a single-use packaging, or is it a package used for storage? How many of us open the carton, drink it empty at one go and then dispose of it in the nearest bush?’ asks Harlin.
Also, what is the logic behind saying that a paperboard box used by hamburger restaurants, mainly made of wood but coated with plastic, is a plastic product according to the directive, but a similar packaging in the grocery shop is not, despite the fact that the contents are meant to be eaten after they have sat in their packagings when still warm?
There is a long list of fully biodegradable plastics, but the quantities in which they are used are just a few per mille of the total market. The Commission has taken a very prohibitive stand on them, because their incompatibility can cause havoc in the plastics recycling system.
’It’s difficult to find any other logic in this, except lobbying: fast food must be controlled with the help of reducing litter,’ Harlin says.
And what about biodegradability? First of all, not all bio-based plastics are biodegradable: some are just the same in this respect as the plastics in general use today, while others can be composted industrially, and a few actually decompose even in a domestic composter.
’There is a long list of fully biodegradable plastics, but the quantities in which they are used are just a few per mille of the total market. The Commission has taken a very prohibitive stand on them, because their incompatibility can cause havoc in the plastics recycling system,’ Harlin says.
Protective barriers have many purposes
But why are protective barriers needed in wood-based and other packagings? The purpose of packing a product is to protect it from the environment and, conversely, the environment from the product. Without packaging, food wastage would increase astronomically.
Barriers contribute to the main goals of packaging. Harlin says there are three main goals and two lesser ones. The properties of barriers vary depending on several factors, including the shelf life of the product, or whether the content will be consumed ’immediately’ as if taken from serving dishes, or whether the food remains in the packaging for a longer period, in the way of convenience foods, or whether it is meant to be re-heated in the packaging and consumed from it.
For products with a long shelf life in particular, the barrier is designed to prevent the entry of oxygen, since it induces and accelerates spoilage. An example of products with a long shelf life is UHT milk, which may sit in the shop for months before being purchased.
The barrier keeps moisture inside the packaging, for otherwise the product might get tough or dry and lose weight. The third important task of the barrier is to prevent grease from leaking out and causing stains.
If the food is packaged in a protective atmosphere, the barrier should naturally keep this intact. In addition, the barrier must keep in the aromas of highly seasoned products and of fish in particular.
Aluminium is used for the same purposes as plastic, though it, too, has its limitations. Acidic content erodes aluminium, and aluminium ions must be kept out of foods. This is why the inside of drinks cans, for example, is coated – with plastic.
Instead of steering, directive only pretends to
Ali Harlin has his doubts about the SUP directive:
’It attempts to solve a problem that it can’t solve. The problem is that our system of consumption is based on single use, and this began to slowly emerge as early as the beginning of the 20th century. In Finland at that time, the kiosks at every railway station began to sell sandwiches wrapped in paper. In fact, remnants of fast food outlets have even been found in the ruins of Pompeii,’ says Harlin.
It attempts to solve a problem that it can’t solve. The problem is that our system of consumption is based on single use, and this began to slowly emerge as early as the beginning of the 20th century. In Finland at that time, the kiosks at every railway station began to sell sandwiches wrapped in paper. In fact, remnants of fast food outlets have even been found in the ruins of Pompeii.
Several trends support the single-use culture.
’Packaged convenience foods are handy for urban singles, who may be active at any time of the night or day, and their number is growing,’ says Harlin.
The problem about the directive is that it does not steer behaviour in any way, even though this is the impression given. Instead of requiring that consumers be told how to recycle a packaging that contains plastic, the directive requires that a turtle logo is placed on the packaging, only indicating that the packaging contains plastic.
’What use is this logo to the consumer? How can they avoid products with a turtle logo? Do they have other alternatives at the point of sale? They do not,’ says Harlin.
What is more, the turtle logo does not follow the customary logic of environmental labelling, which indicates that something is good in one way or another, rather than something to avoid.
