Valio counted as a first food packaging company to start using recycled plastic. This expansion in packaging is part of a bigger goal: the food company needs to cut milk’s carbon footprint to zero by 2035.

Plastic uses in all types of food products that hold for a long duration. If it is without the plastic protection, the food will decompose, even after transfers into the fridges at home. Packaging has played an important task – to secure a more significant environmental risk: food waste. Plastic transforms into a problem if it ends up in nature.

All of us can maintain our actions and recycle. It’s likely to accept recycled plastic in food packages. Valio’s delicacy cheeses’ new type of packages contains 90% recycled plastic. More than 50% of plastic is recycled for the Mifu slice and Mifu jauhis packages. So, we intend to increase our recycled plastic application in the future.

Using recycled plastic degrades the carbon footprint by 40-60 percent correlated to producing plastic from fossil oil. We intend that in 2020, all Valio sliced cheese packaging with at least 50-percent recycled plastic. 

Hopefully, in the future, 10% of all Valio packaging plastic in Finland’s country will be recycled. That means a lot when it talks about the environment, says Juhana Pilkama, package development manager.

All recycled plastic collected, sorted, cleaned, and inspected for the material. Sorting mechanisms handle possible mistakes, which does occur with an added cost, but that is the minor of two evils compared to throwing all your plastic in different waste. In the future, we aim to simplify the recycling instructions we imprint on our packages to make recycling more accessible, says Juhana Pilkama.

We are happy to announce that we bring recycled plastic to food packaging! #Recycledplastic reduces the plastic industry’s environmental emissions by 40-60% compared to plastic from fossil oil, and further reduces milk's carbon footprint. #sustainability https://t.co/iSJj3SEmBI

— Valio International (@Valio_Ltd) September 27, 2019

From plant-based packages to recycled plastic

In 2015, Valio launched 100% plant-based cartons to Finland’s markets. In addition, these cartons consist of wood, and the thin plastic film from the sugarcane waste, i.e., excess plant parts. And the closures made with wholly plant-based.

In 2019, Valio is stopping the use of black-dyed plastic. Now, recycling machines cannot recognize the black color, which indicates black plastic doesn’t get recycled.