Alternativas de materiales de envases biodegradables para la disminución del plástico en una cadena de café premium

Abstract

The present project called: "Alternatives of biodegradable packaging materials for reducing plastic in a premium coffee chain" has three (3) objectives for its development, beginning with the identification of the amount of packaging waste generated in a chain of premium coffee located in the city of Bogotá during the quarter of November, December 2019 and January 2020 to have a baseline of the consumption of glasses of hot drinks, secondly, to know the perception of people regarding the use of containers of biodegradable material in hot beverages and finally evaluate the possibility of designing a production process to generate biodegradable packaging.

The methodology for the development of the project includes the diagnosis and characterization of the amount of containers generated by a premium coffee chain during the quarter of November, December 2019 and January 2020. Next, a survey was carried out with 120 people in order to know the perception of customers in aspects such as predilection of the type of container, price, size, among other important characteristics when choosing a hot drink container.

The quantified quantity in the quarter was 2,283 containers, which served as a baseline to establish the production estimates for biodegradable containers and thus carry out the evaluation of the selected materials, to calculate the required investment costs.

In turn, a perception analysis was carried out on a population group of 120 people to determine the pattern of consumption of hot beverages and the most preferred biodegradable material. The data obtained were used as a reference to evaluate the design possibility of a biodegradable packaging production process. The selected materials were PLA with Bamboo and sugarcane bagasse; the first material was the one with the highest vote in the survey and the second material was chosen based on the criteria and analysis of variables of the project executors.

The result obtained from this evaluation indicates that the material with the highest investment probability would be sugarcane bagasse, since it is the one that requires less production costs and provides us with the environmentally sustainable characteristics to have a high-quality biodegradable container.