Browsing by Person "Uysal-Unalan, Ilke"

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Bioplastics for food packaging: Environmental impact, trends and regulatory aspects
(2022) Cruz, Rui M. S.; Krauter, Victoria; Krauter, Simon; Agriopoulou, Sofia; Weinrich, Ramona; Herbes, Carsten; Scholten, Philip B. V.; Uysal-Unalan, Ilke; Sogut, Ece; Kopacic, Samir; Lahti, Johanna; Rutkaite, Ramune; Varzakas, Theodoros
The demand to develop and produce eco-friendly alternatives for food packaging is increasing. The huge negative impact that the disposal of so-called “single-use plastics” has on the environment is propelling the market to search for new solutions, and requires initiatives to drive faster responses from the scientific community, the industry, and governmental bodies for the adoption and implementation of new materials. Bioplastics are an alternative group of materials that are partly or entirely produced from renewable sources. Some bioplastics are biodegradable or even compostable under the right conditions. This review presents the different properties of these materials, mechanisms of biodegradation, and their environmental impact, but also presents a holistic overview of the most important bioplastics available in the market and their potential application for food packaging, consumer perception of the bioplastics, regulatory aspects, and future challenges.
Sustainable food packaging: An updated definition following a holistic approach
(2023) Dörnyei, Krisztina Rita; Uysal-Unalan, Ilke; Krauter, Victoria; Weinrich, Ramona; Incarnato, Loredana; Karlovits, Igor; Colelli, Giancarlo; Chrysochou, Polymeros; Fenech, Margaret Camilleri; Pettersen, Marit Kvalvåg; Arranz, Elena; Marcos, Begonya; Frigerio, Valeria; Apicella, Annalisa; Yildirim, Selçuk; Poças, Fátima; Dekker, Matthijs; Johanna, Lahti; Coma, Véronique; Corredig, Milena
Food packaging solutions need to be redesigned to be more sustainable, but determining which solution is ‘more optimal’ is a very difficult task when considering the entire food product value chain. Previous papers paved the way toward a sustainable food packaging definition, but it is far from being commonly accepted or well usable in the broad food systems domain, which further results in uninformed choices for sustainable food packaging made by all stakeholders in the value chain: producers, distributors, practitioners and consumers. Therefore, this work aims first at giving a state-of-the-art overview of sustainable food packaging terms (38 similar terms were identified and grouped into four clusters: Sustainable, Circular, Bio and Other sustainable packaging) and definitions using systematic (narrative) review analysis and ‘controlled expert opinion feedback’ methodology. Second, it aims to offer an updated definition for sustainable food packaging, which is also specific to food packaging and be simple, coherent, easily understandable, and communicable to everybody. The applied holistic approach intends to include all aspects of the food-packaging unit, to consider food safety and packaging functionality, while taking into account different disciplines and challenges related to food packaging along the supply chain. Being a balancing act, a sustainable food packaging may not be a perfect solution, but contextual, suboptimal and in need of constant validation.