Valio uses recycled plastic for packaging

Finnish dairy and food company, Valio is among the first food companies to begin using recycled plastic. This development in packaging is part of a larger goal: the food company wants to cut milk’s carbon footprint to zero by 2035.

Valio’s delicacy cheeses now come in packaging made from at least 90% recycled plastic. Over 50% of Mifu slice and Mifu jauhis packages’ plastic is recycled. The company expects to use more recycled plastics in the future.

Stating that recycled plastic use cuts the plastic industry’s environmental emissions by 40-60% compared to making the plastic from fossil oil, Valio aims that its sliced cheese packages in Finland will be made from at least 50% recycled plastic in 2020.

In the future, roughly 10% of all Valio’s packaging plastic in Finland will be recycled. That matters a lot when it comes to the environment, says Juhana Pilkama, package development manager.

Many struggle with plastic recycling and don't know where different types of plastic go. Pilkama says the most important thing is to recycle the plastic and it isn’t that big of a deal if a package ends up in the wrong bin once in a while.

All recycled plastic is sorted, washed carefully and checked by sorting machines to prevent possible mistakes that end up in an additional cost. The lesser of two evils compared to throwing all your plastic in mixed waste. In the future, we intend to clarify the recycling instructions we print on our packages to make recycling easier, according to Pilkama.

From plant-based packages to recycled plastic

Valio has worked, over the years, to reduce the amount of plastic and to develop our packaging materials. In 2015, the company introduced 100% plant-based cartons to Finland’s stores. These cartons are made out of wood, and the thin protective plastic film from the sugarcane industry’s waste, i.e. excess plant parts. The caps are also fully plant-based.

Packages have an environmental impact of only 2% of the entire food product’s environmental load when it comes to carbon dioxide. Despite that, we want to reduce our packaging’s environmental load further. At the same time, we are working with dairy farms, among others, to reduce milk production’s climate emissions, says Pilkama.

In 2019, Valio is discontinuing its use of black-dyed plastic in Finland. Current recycling devices cannot identify the black colour, which means black plastic packages don’t get recycled.