Green trend slow to catch on locally

       It might take up to five years for Thailand to see a definite trend in consumer demand for green food and beverage packaging, according to Gloyta Na Thalang,communications director of Tetra Pak (Thailand) Ltd.
       The global leader in food and beverage packaging said Thailand attached less importance to the environment than developed countries because of lack of solid support by the government.
       "The government does not yet have clear measures, whereas many countries that have changed their packaging policies are backed by government measures and export regulations," said Mrs Gloyta.
       "It took us over five years to educate the public ... that our products are able to be recycled, so it might take another five years to see a definite concern about green packaging by consumers here."
       Mrs Gloyta said that in other countries,paper-based packaging is gaining ground over glass and plastic, as the latter is petroleum-based. The rise in paperbased cartons can be seen from the growing number of people drinking soy milk,as it is usually packaged in cartons.
       Prom Sirisant, Tetra Pak's portfolio manager, said the local trend to converting to cartons would develop slowly as an influence from other countries.
       Even wine companies are looking to package their wine in cartons."French rabbit" wines, for instance, use Tetra beverage cartons to show that their product is eco-friendly, said Mrs Gloyta.
       Mrs Gloyta said beverage cartons would also replace aluminium cans for food packaging, since the latter also in-volve heavy use of petroleum. European manufacturers are making this switch,but the market is still small in Thailand.
       Tetra Pak is the first packaging manufacturer in Thailand to be certified with the carbon label for beverage cartons since the start of this year. The label certifies that the production process cuts carbon dioxide emissions by at least 10% in 2008 compared to 2002 levels.
       "However, even consumers today still might not be that interested in carbon labels, so we need to educate them,"said Mrs Gloyta.
       75% of Tetra's packaging is made of paper, while 20% is made up of polyethylene and 5% aluminium foil, all of which can be recycled.
       In 2008,25.6 billion Tetra Pak packages were collected and recycled in 47 recycling plants worldwide.
       Mr Prom said the company's research and development centres were currently looking to reduce non-renewable raw materials to a smaller percentage.
       The paper in Tetra Pak's cartons is made from wood fibre that comes from sustainably managed and certified forest plantations, in which every tree that has been cut down will be replaced by four to 20 newly planted trees, said Mrs Gloyta.
       "I think it's up to the willingness of consumers and our customers and whether they [Tetra's customers] want to differentiate in terms of environmental concern. One day when they see that the market is ready, we will see a shift to beverage cartons," added Mrs Gloyta.
       Out of 1.53 trillion litres of worldwide beverage consumption in 2008, Tetra Pak supplied 140 billion packages for 70.6 billion litres.