Neomaterials in the circular economy - Packaging

 A book by Piero Capodieci Edizioni Ambiente, October 2018

A complex and technologically advanced object, a purchasing orientation tool able to inform the consumer on the characteristics of the product and the brand, packaging performs an essential task: preserve and protect the contents, from which it cannot be conceived separately.
Packaging in fact, from its very conception, “depends on the product for which it is intended and each product serves a given type of packaging” (from the Preface by Giorgio Quagliuolo).

It is on these assumptions that the survey presented in Neomaterials in the circular economy - Packaging, is based. The publication illustrates the practices used in the sector, being subdivided into three sections, introduced by Piero Capodieci.
The first is dedicated to the presentation of the qualities and methods of managing packaging made with “biomateries”, generated through biological and intrinsically renewable processes, such as paper, wood and bioplastics.

The second section “supply chains that renew themselves” examines materials of inorganic or fossil origin, whose circular processes have been perfected over time, reaching a high level of replacement of the virgin raw material: aluminum, steel, plastic and glass.
Biobased materials, experiments, design and use innovations, mainly made by startups and research centers, are the subject of the last chapter. These “materials in transition” enable a saving of resources and energy along the entire production chain and point in the direction of packaging of the future.