Full length article
Greenhouse gas emissions associated with food packaging for online food delivery services in Australia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105299Get rights and content

Highlights

  • GHG emissions from online food delivery packaging estimated with PIQET LCA software.

  • Packaging-related GHG emissions range from 0.15 to 0.29 kg CO2-e per OFDS order.

  • Raw material production represents at least 50% of packaging-related GHG emissions.

  • Higher recycling rate has a small benefit due to emission intensity of reprocessing.

  • Consumer opt-out option for packaging materials would help reduce GHG emissions.

ABSTRACT

The food service industry has seen the advent of online food delivery services (OFDS) due to the development of online retailing and a rise in mobile phone usage. OFDS are growing in popularity around the world and are increasing the use of take-away food packaging and the subsequent environmental implications from its production and disposal. While a large number of studies have considered packaging-related environmental effects, there has been limited focus on the effect of OFDS-related packaging demand on the environment, particularly in relation to greenhouse gas emissions. This study quantifies the packaging-related greenhouse gas emissions associated with OFDS orders. Data on food packaging for a range of the most popular cuisines delivered by OFDS in Australia were collected from restaurants. The assessment was performed using the Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool, which showed that the packaging-related greenhouse gas emissions for a single order ranges from 0.15 to 0.29 kg CO2e, depending on packaging type. Of this, production of packaging raw materials contributes at least 50%. With the expansion of the OFDS sector, the annual greenhouse gas emissions associated with OFDS food packaging in Australia is predicted to grow by 132% by 2024. This preliminary examination of the greenhouse gas emissions implications of food packaging production and disposal associated with the Australian OFDS industry adds to the limited knowledge in this area and provides valuable insights into the greenhouse gas emissions implications of the emerging global OFDS industry.

Introduction

The food service industry has undergone vast changes in the past four decades, influenced by and influencing consumer demands, technological advancements and lifestyles (Sim et al., 2007). A recent change in the industry has been the development of online food delivery services (OFDS) - internet platforms that allow customers to purchase food from partnering restaurants through web applications, and have it delivered to their homes. The advent of OFDS changes the food sector considerably due to the increase in e-commerce and shift from traditional modes of food preparation (home cooking, semi-prepared home cooking and in-restaurant meals) to food delivery (Behzad et al., 2014). As more regions of the world undergo urbanisation and as everyday life gets more fast paced, the use of OFDS is predicted to grow (Lucas and Zhang 2018; Vuong 2018). The rapid uptake of OFDS in the last decade has been attributed to factors such as growth of the internet and e-commerce, hedonic motivation, increasing household discretionary income, and convenience and time-saving in increasingly busier lives (Blumtritt 2018; Song et al., 2018; Yeo et al., 2017).

In Australia, online food delivery (by restaurants themselves and OFDS) has a penetration rate of 30%, with about 7.3 million active users (Blumtritt, 2018). OFDS are present in Australia's major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, with recent expansion to smaller cities, such as Hobart and Bendigo (Vuong 2018). The Australian market for OFDS comprises three major companies as of 2018: Just Eat (Acquisitions) (established 2007; market share 44.9%), Deliveroo Australia (established 2015; market share 28%), and Uber Australia (established 2016; market share 26.6%). The industry has seen an annual growth of 72% over the last 5 years, with a predicted annual growth rate of 15.4% in the coming five years (Vuong 2018). Fig. 1 shows the most popular cuisines ordered by Australians through OFDS. The category of ‘other’ includes drinks, desserts, and other international cuisines.

Online express deliveries, including OFDS, require the products to be contained in delivery packages for their protection. In 2019, the global market volume for containers and packaging consisted of 1.9 billion packaging units which is predicted to increase to 2.1 billion units by 2023 due to the increase in spending on organised retail and packaged goods (MarketLine 2019a, 2019b). The food service industry is a significant driver of this growth, as packaging is an important component of a food product in all stages of the food supply chain (Olsson et al., 2004). Food packaging serves the following functions: product protection and containment, product use, product promotion, and facilitation of recycling (Orzan et al., 2018). The most common materials used in food packaging are glass, metals, plastic, paperboard and flexible film/paper/foil. Of these, while glass and metal are the most used materials by volume, the lightweight paper and plastic materials are the most significant materials for the food packaging sector by number (Piergiovanni and Limbo 2016).

The food supply chain is one of the major contributors to global environmental issues such as land use change, biodiversity loss, climate change, and eutrophication (Molina-Besch et al., 2019). The farm-to-mouth food sector has effects on the environment across all stages of its life cycle - agriculture, processing, transport and waste generation (Sonesson et al., 2005; Behzad et al., 2014). An increase in OFDS use will impact all stages of the food supply chain and will change the magnitude of the effects that the food industry has on the environment. With OFDS specifically, excluding the food production and last mile delivery impacts, significant environmental effects have been suggested to occur from food packaging production and waste generation (Yi et al., 2017; Song et al., 2018).

Large quantities of natural resources (such as energy and raw materials) are used to produce packaging, of which two-thirds are used by the food industry (Orzan et al., 2018; Yi et al., 2017; Piergiovanni and Limbo 2016). This demand for energy and raw materials causes a strain on the environment through the depletion of resources and release of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Packaging production and disposal can also lead to the release of a wide range of pollutants into the environment (Fan et al., 2017). An increase in the use of plastic packaging due to its low production costs and durability is of particular concern, as plastic pollution has emerged as a significant environmental problem in recent years (MarketLine 2019b). Studying the environmental effects of e-commerce packaging is an emerging field of study, with many studies originating from China. Duan et al. (2019) found that 7. 8 million metric tonnes of packaging waste was produced from e-commerce in China. Song et al. (2018) estimated that 1.5 million tonnes of this was from food delivery, comprising predominantly of plastic bags, utensils and containers, paper slips and wooden chopsticks.

A life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to quantify the environmental effects associated with packaging production and disposal based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (2006a; 2006b) framework. This approach enables an analysis of the environmental flows occurring across the entire life cycle of a product, from raw materials acquisition to final disposal. Using this approach, Fan et al. (2017) estimated that the production and delivery of express packaging materials in China contributed to 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2015. An LCA of express delivery packaging by Yi et al. (2017) quantified environmental impacts in terms of global warming, acidification, photochemical oxidation, eutrophication, and energy consumption. They found that the production and usage stages of the packaging life cycle contribute greatest to its environmental effects amounting to 79% of its life cycle energy use. Su et al. (2020) estimated that GHG emissions from express delivery packaging in China increased from 0.3 Mt in 2007 to 13.2 Mt in 2018. Specific to OFDS, Jia et al. (2018) estimated that 1.68 million tonnes of OFDS packaging waste was generated in 2016 in China, which needed 58.89 GWh of electricity for processing, and emitted 73.89 Gt of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions. Liu et al. (2020) conducted a comprehensive study of OFDS packaging in the Jing-Jin-Ji region of China, assessing waste quantities, and environmental impacts across 18 impact categories, which also showed considerable environmental effects from OFDS packaging production and disposal.

Due to contamination from food particles, food packaging waste is not easily recyclable and often ends up in landfill, incineration, or is illegally dumped (Song et al., 2018). Of all the end-of-life waste management methods, incineration has been shown to produce the greatest environmental damage, as opposed to recycling which can help to reduce the manufacturing-related energy use of new packaging by up to 62% (Yi et al., 2017). Vitale et al. (2018) have analysed the process of separating and recovering materials from contaminated food packaging. They found that this can be a viable option for reducing the environmental effects associated with food packaging disposal, compared to landfilling these materials. This not only reduces disposal related environmental effects, but may also help to further reduce the environmental effects associated with new packaging production through a more circular approach to the packaging life cycle.

The OFDS are aware of the waste issue created by their services. The company Deliveroo in Australia has started a closed loop reusable container scheme in partnership with Returnr, where meals are delivered in a stainless steel container and can be returned to Returnr locations for a refundable fee. While OFDS in Australia are pledging to consider sustainability in their actions such as using more eco-friendly packaging materials, it is at present not common or highly visible.

Every actor in the food supply chain influences its environmental performance and consumer attitudes are an important factor to consider in understanding the environmental performance of food supply chains (Behzad et al., 2014; Mancini et al., 2017). Consumer behaviour in the product use and disposal stages is a significant driver of the environmental effects associated with a product, with recycling of waste and diverting from landfill having the ability to contribute to significant emission reductions (Vasileva & Ivanova 2014). Sorting of waste at the source, as opposed to the waste management facility, is more effective as it is cheaper and produces cleaner and higher quality materials, which increases material recycling (Nemat et al. 2019). While waste management interventions have focused on engineering aspects such as manufacturing, recycling and production efficiency, the biggest inhibitors to increasing material recovery and recycling rates has been shown to be cultural and behavioural (Clark et al., 2020).

Various studies have analysed consumer packaging disposal behaviour to identify the driving and limiting factors for recycling. According to the theory of planned behaviour, the main psychological factors affecting consumer disposal behaviour are attitude (positive/negative self-perception of performing the behaviour), perceived behavioural control (self-perception of one's ability to perform the behaviour), as well as subjective norms (social pressure to perform the behaviour) (Khan et al. 2019; Nemat et al. 2019). Demographic and external factors such as income level, education level, gender, age and underdeveloped waste infrastructure influence the above psychological factors (Cichocka et al., 2020; Vasileva & Ivanova 2014). Lack of knowledge regarding environmental effects and recycling is a barrier to recycling, coupled with confusion regarding the packaging labelling and recycling systems. Lower income and education levels also influence consumer attitudes, with these demographics found to be ‘indifferent’ to environmentally conscious behaviour (Vasileva & Ivanova 2014). In those who are not indifferent to recycling, inconvenience is the main factor affecting recycling behaviour, in terms of time, effort, space and packaging attributes. The main packaging attributes that inhibit recycling behaviour include mixed materials in packaging, size, material, and need for emptying and cleaning contaminants.

While there is a general increase in environmental awareness amongst consumers regarding their purchase practices, there is an awareness-action gap that isn't translating environmental concern into better packaging and waste management behaviour (Orzan et al., 2018). Therefore, it is essential that packaging and waste systems consider consumer behaviour in their designs for environmental efficiency. Packaging that is ‘easy to empty, easy to clean, easy to fold, easy to separate, easy to reseal, and [has] availability of information on how to sort’ facilitates proper sorting (Nemat et al. 2019).

Since the OFDS industry is relatively young, research and discourse around the industry and its effects on the environment are scarce. The predicted expansion of this industry in the coming years highlights the need to monitor its processes and effects. Further, data on consumer behaviour regarding OFDS is scarce and is required in order to inform decision-making as well as educational and policy responses. The aim of this study was to quantify the packaging-related GHG emissions of the OFDS industry. The OFDS industry is complex and involves multiple actors, including industry firms managing bookings, food providers preparing meals, delivery personnel and customers. There are multiple sources of GHG emissions across the OFDS supply chain, however the focus of this study is on the GHG emissions released from the production and disposal of food packaging for OFDS orders.

This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides the research approach used in this study. Section 3 provides the results obtained from the quantification of GHG emissions associated with food packaging for OFDS orders. Section 4 discusses the significance of the obtained results for the OFDS and packaging industries, and concludes the paper.

Section snippets

Research approach

The research approach used in this study is shown in Fig. 2. To understand OFDS consumer behaviour, a survey was conducted to obtain data on OFDS use and packaging disposal practices. To evaluate the GHG emissions associated with the production and disposal of take-away packaging used by OFDS, a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was used as it enables a comprehensive assessment of a product across all stages of its life cycle (International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2006a).

This

Consumer survey results

The results of the consumer survey, conducted to better understand consumer OFDS purchasing and packaging disposal behaviours, are shown in Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6. A total of 73 responses were obtained from users of OFDS in Australia, showing that 73% used OFDS only once a week or less, with 27% of respondents using OFDS twice or more in a week (Fig. 4). With a target population size of 2,400,000, the sample size achieved provides a relative standard error of 11.8% and a confidence interval of

Discussion and conclusion

In 2018, Australia emitted 537.8 Mt CO2e. The manufacturing sector contributed 11% of these emissions, out of which 18.1 Mt CO2e were from production of food packaging (made of paper and plastic). In addition, the waste sector contributed 2.3% of emissions, out of which 9 Mt CO2e were from disposal of solid waste on land (CoA 2020a; CoA 2020b).

This study estimated that the top three OFDS in Australia contributed 5.6 kt CO2e in 2018, associated with packaging production and disposal, which

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Indumathi Arunan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Visualization. Robert H. Crawford: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the PIQET team for providing access to the software for this study.

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