Enabling the reuse of food-to-go packaging

Plastic pollution is a major global issue causing severe damage to our environment and wildlife. The proliferation of single-use plastic packaging is a large contributor to this problem, much of which is produced by the food-to-go (FTG) industry. Reuse of plastic packaging is a promising solution to eliminate the FTG industry’s plastic waste problem, but some key barriers to its widescale implementation must first be overcome. Barriers such as supply chain modelling, cleaning assurance, plastic traceability and consumer behaviour. The perpetual plastics for food-to-go project (PPFTG) is a multidisciplinary effort based at Loughborough University, incorporating several industry stakeholders. Polymer science plays a fundamental role in several areas of the PPFTG project in its aim to define a new plastic reuse model for FTG.