Sustainable packaging is an essential component of a greener future. It encompasses the sourcing, development, and use of packaging solutions that have minimal environmental impact and footprint. Recently, our team had the opportunity to present to our executive committee on the topic of sustainable packaging. To showcase the potential of BIOVIA tools and solutions, we created a powerful video that demonstrates how these tools can positively impact the 6Rs (Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Repurpose, Recycle, Repair).
Enhancing the sustainability of packaging materials is something that impacts all of us, so we focused on leveraging BIOVIA’s modeling and simulation tools to design new materials, enzymes, and optimize processes.
The story’s focus revolves around a company launching a new food product that receives positive feedback, but the packaging material is not well received because it is not made from sustainable material. This pushes the company to look at how they can improve the sustainability of their packaging and processes. The video is split into three parts:
- Rethink the tray material – New random heteropolymers are designed using BIOVIA Materials Studio to help accelerate the composting of packaging material under controlled conditions.
- Recycle the plastic film – BIOVIA Solvation Chemistry tools help design new solvent formulations to create a new process for separating the different polymers in packaging film.
- Repurpose existing PET trays – BIOVIA Discovery Studio enables the design of new enzymes to digest a common plastic tray material.
This is the first of a three-part series introducing sustainable packaging. The next two articles will explore the scientific aspects of the various components of sustainable packaging, so be sure to check them out.
Want to learn more about the end-to-end strategy that delivers sustainable packaging with speed, quality and cost efficiency?
Read: Revolutionizing Packaging, Moving Towards Sustainable Tray Materials Part II
Stephen Todd is a Strategy Planning Expert for the BIOVIA team at Dassault Systèmes UK with a special focus on materials science and simulation tools. Prior to joining the Strategy team, Stephen was the Portfolio Manager for BIOVA’s discrete modeling and simulation tools and worked for 15 years with various stakeholders to build the market leading Materials Studio simulation product. He holds a PhD in molecular modeling of liquid crystals from the University of Hull, UK and enjoys getting people excited about science.