Is food packaging harmful to the environment? A discussion of the direct and indirect influences of food packaging systems

Packaging maintains quality and decreases food loss and waste (FLW); however, it creates environmental problems such as climate change. This review elucidates the contributions of packaging to the environmental impacts of the life cycle of foods and supports environmentally proper packaging that maintains the quality of foods and minimizes FLW. Many studies report that the food production stage is the most relevant process. This shows that additional production compensating for the FLW can increase the environmental burdens, and FLW reduction by packaging decreases the burden of the food life cycle. The lower the energy density of food (kcal/100 g) is, the greater the contribution of packaging. This supports decision making on which stages we should prioritize to minimize the environmental impacts. Food packaging systems requires environmentally optimized packaging that balances the direct (i.e., environmental burden for packaging production) and indirect (i.e., reduction in FLW and FLW-related environmental burden) influences.