ILO Home

See text links
below

Technology and employment in the food and drink industries

Report for discussion at the, Technology and Employment in the Food and Drink Industries

Part 6    

Copyright ® 1999 International Labour Organization (ILO)

6. Environmental issues

Although the FD industries are not as polluting as some other sectors,⁽¹⁾ they have also been responsible for air and water pollution by emitting dust and unpleasant odours in the air, discharging liquid effluent with high organic content and generating large quantities of sludge and solid waste. For example, some potato starch processing companies produce 100,000 to 250,000 m³ of starch-containing sludge annually. In the vegetable processing and preservation sector, up to one-third of the total quantity of raw materials may be rejected.⁽²⁾ Edible oil processing results in substantial quantities of solid as well as liquid wastes, such as fibres, shells and extraction residues of oil and grease. Slaughterhouses produce liquid effluents with varying amounts of solid waste, in addition to the odour from putrescible substances and organic decomposition. Faecal coliform bacteria contained in waste water from slaughterhouses can pose a serious environmental and health hazard, unless properly treated.⁽³⁾

Even if the FD industries are not the major polluters in society, they must be extra sensitive to environmental issues as related problems can threaten the livelihood of some enterprises. For example, a UNEP monitoring programme has found concentrations of metals such as lead and cadmium in staple foods and water in some parts of Europe and North America. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury have also been found in food in some industrialized areas due to local water pollution.⁽⁴⁾ In China there were a total of 1,617 waste water pollution accidents in 1994. According to incomplete statistics from 20 provinces, 333 pollution accidents occurred that year involving the fishery industry, resulting in a loss of RMB1.26 billion.⁽⁵⁾ Achieving better environmental performance is therefore in the interests of the FD industries, as a clean environment is necessary to ensure the production of products that are safe for consumption.

Another environmental issue often associated with the FD industries is the problem of packaging materials, the use of which normally increases in proportion to economic development. The packaging of any industrial product performs the important functions of providing the consumer with information on the content of the product as well as with instructions. The essential role of packaging in the FD industries, however, is to ensure the delivery of FD products to consumers in hygienic condition and to prolong their shelf-life. A high proportion of food spoilage and wastage found in many developing countries is often due to inappropriate packaging.

The FD industries are not the only sector that generates post-consumer packaging waste, but they are often the largest users of packaging materials. In Australia, for example, packaging used by the FD industries accounted for about A$3.9 billion of the total packaging output of A$5.6 billion in 1995, or 70 per cent of the total.⁽⁶⁾ For this reason, the waste from FD products may be the most visible waste materials in today's highly consumer-oriented society, where the management of packaging waste has become a hot political issue. Becoming more conscious of this issue, consumers may increasingly choose which product to buy on the basis, for example, of the producer's environmental reputation or the recyclability of the packaging materials being used.

In addition, many municipalities in industrialized countries impose stringent environmental regulations on industrial establishments, and these are likely to become even more strict. In view of this future trend, no enterprise will be able to ignore the environmental impact of its activities. Thus, its efforts to reduce post-consumer packaging waste will also serve the interests of the company. While technology has largely been responsible for creating various environmental problems, many companies are trying to find in new technology better solutions to existing problems. The following section will briefly review recent environmental developments and their possible implications for employment in the FD industries.

New technology and the environment

Technological development has not only been responsible for more efficient production processes. It can also give rise to more environmentally friendly workplaces for all concerned. Many new facilities, machines and automated handling methods have reduced both energy consumption and leakages of various chemical substances, liquids and gases, such as oil, PCBs and CFCs (chlorofluorocarbon), to make the workplace and factory surroundings safer and cleaner. For example, a dryer-oven/cooler system, which is ideal for cooking and prebaking dough products like frozen pizza and which has recently been introduced by a manufacturer in the United States, reduces processing time by 50 per cent and operates at lower temperatures, thus reducing fuel consumption by 30 per cent. Some new freezing mechanisms use CFC-free refrigerants or have sealless construction to minimize refrigerant loss to the atmosphere.⁽⁷⁾

In response to the stricter environmental regulations imposed by many communities, a number of FD plants have installed modern waste water and smoke treatment devices that can purify water and smoke as well as recycle fat from water or steam, the latter resulting in energy savings. The problem of frying smells and the unpleasant odour of garlic, for example, has been addressed by the use of air scrubbers on chimneys. Vegetable waste which used to be dumped in the ocean is now fed to animals,⁽⁸⁾ though this may not be deemed to be new technology.

Biotechnology, which has become an important aspect of today's FD industries, is also being increasingly applied to environmental control. The major problem caused by effluent from food- processing plants is its high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) which can reduce the oxygen content of the water to the point of suffocating marine organisms, including fish. Other troublesome components of the effluent are suspended solids, oil and grease. The new effluent treatment technology, using a naturally occurring, biological polymer that is biodegradable, is said to reduce the BOD in the waste water by 60-80 per cent, and suspended solids, oil and grease by 95 per cent.⁽⁹⁾ Many households have drained used cooking oil into the sewage system, causing water pollution, but an oil processing company in Japan now recommends that consumers convert old cooking oil into safe liquid soap by adding an enzyme to it.⁽¹⁰⁾ This is a small example of a biotechnological application to environmental problems as well as an environmentally conscious firm's response to the possible environmental impact of its products.

However, many people are still apprehensive about the possible environmental impact of genetic engineering applied to animals and plants that are used as raw materials for FD products. They insist that its long-term effects on the environment and human health are still unknown and may take a considerable time to manifest themselves. Some fear that when negative effects become apparent, they may seriously affect higher living organisms through food-chains. In view of the unknown factors involved in this technology, many recommend that thorough research be continued with entire transparency.⁽¹¹⁾

There are many examples of the environmentally good practices applied by FD companies involving new technology, innovative ideas and better handling methods. A coconut processing company in the Philippines, for example, through a programme to improve process efficiency and reduce waste, managed to reduce coconut wastage from 19 to 9 per cent at a capital cost of P160,000, which was recovered from savings in just 15 days. The company also achieved a reduction in energy demand and waste water generation. A dairy processing plant in the United Kingdom, which had once been prosecuted for polluting a local river with ammonia, killing thousands of fish, adopted a new policy to reduce effluent as well as wastage and production costs. The company's efforts resulted in its receiving a corporate environmental award in 1991.

Before implementing an environmental improvement programme, a beer manufacturer in China used to lose nearly 10 per cent of its beer, which in effect increased its effluent load. Better control of bottle filling and improved equipment have reduced beer loss, resulting in a reduced BOD of the company's effluent. The initiative not only improved the environment but also the company's profit. A citrus fruit packing company in the United States, which had generated up to 20,000 gallons of waste water arising from detergent washing, disinfection, waxing and colouring, reduced water usage by up to 19,000 gallons per day by installing a water pre-treatment and reuse system. This system allowed water to be reused 20-40 times before final discharge, enabling the company to save $3,500 per year in water and sewage treatment costs.⁽¹²⁾ The oil processing company in Japan mentioned above has converted the solid waste remaining after oil extraction into various natural organic fertilizers for gardening. This has not only reduced the amount of waste produced but has also enabled the company to expand into a new area.⁽¹³⁾ These examples show that environmentally friendly measures and ideas also often prove economically beneficial to FD companies.

Technology in the area of packaging materials for FD products is also advancing. As mentioned earlier, returnable glass bottles previously used for all types of drink products are increasingly being replaced by other materials such as metal, plastic and paper that are much lighter and safer to handle than glass bottles. Metal cans are much thinner and lighter today than a decade ago, which means that less energy is required for distribution and that less cost is involved in recovery and processing after use.⁽¹⁴⁾ Many claim, however, that more use of throw-away packaging materials would lead to a serious environmental problem of increased municipal waste, but some argue that returnable bottles have never been totally environmentally friendly because of their high fuel consumption in distribution due to their weight and the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the effluent from washing. Each packaging material has both positive and negative aspects when overall environmental impact is considered.

In addition to conventional packaging materials, new starch-based polymers of different kinds have been developed in recent years as an alternative to plastic in some applications. Though they are not yet widely used on a commercial basis because of their cost, they are biodegradable, thus environmentally sound, and some are edible. One of them is a film made from wheat that can be coloured, flavoured, fragranced and disappears during cooking. The fact that it does not break down when it gets wet at normal temperatures would open up the possibility of its use as a packaging material for hundreds of processed foods. The addition of different types of edible plasticizers to it, can turn it into a gel when cooked. The film can also be used as a packaging material on standard packaging equipment and can be heat-sealed around goods in the same way as plastics.⁽¹⁵⁾

Another type of recently developed packaging material called EarthShell, which is also biodegradable, could serve as a substitute for paper and polystyrene food containers It is made from ground limestone, potato starch and wood fibres, either new fibres or fibres made from recycled paper. The EarthShell container, similar to ice-cream cones, takes less energy to manufacture and distribute than those made of polystyrene or paper. When crushed, it dissolves in water, in which starch and wood fibre break down and the dissolved limestone is washed away. The container is covered with coatings such as paraffin wax approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prevent it from dissolving on contact with liquid or moisture, but the developer claims that it is stronger and more rigid than polystyrene, and microwaveable.⁽¹⁶⁾

These new biodegradable packaging materials may be future solutions to the problem of post-consumer packaging waste generated by FD products. However, while their wider applications are being explored in terms of practical use and cost, most FD manufacturers will have to continue producing and selling their products in conventional, non-biodegradable packaging materials. This being the case, the problem of packaging waste will require continued efforts by all parties concerned to reduce the volume at source and to collect and recycle packaging materials more effectively.

Environmental regulations and their
impact on the FD industries

The environmental laws regulating effluents of industrial waste are generally enforced with fines for violation. This is to indicate to polluters and would-be polluters that it is more advantageous to invest in pollution-control devices than to pay fines. In many countries, however, charges are often not high enough to offer much of an incentive.⁽¹⁷⁾ The law is also not adequately enforced in a number of societies, particularly as regards small and medium-scale enterprises, for a variety of reasons.

In Hungary the declared environmental policy derives from the principle of sustainable development where environmental aspects are incorporated into all other sectoral policies. A survey conducted recently on 275 FD enterprises in Hungary found that 35 per cent of the enterprises were handling the sewage pollution problem properly and 38 per cent the air pollution problem. However, while 21 per cent had comprehensive environmental protection programmes, 18 per cent had failed to take any action, though they were intending to do so eventually. On the other hand, 29 per cent were found to have no intention of taking any steps to improve their environmental record. The authorities try to enforce their environmental policy with fines for violators, but the enforcement is not effective because only nominal fines are imposed. When the fine is lower than the marginal cost of the environmental investment required to prevent environmental damage, the violator will continue to ignore the regulation and keep paying the fine.⁽¹⁸⁾

In many countries there is often a marked difference in law enforcement between larger enterprises and smaller ones, though smaller ones collectively can be as environmentally harmful as larger ones because of the share of FD enterprises they constitute. In India, for example, a large company producing vegetable oils, caustic soda and chlorine has turned into a model plant following a sulphuric acid leak in 1985 in which approximately 500 people were injured. On the other hand, many small firms have hardly heard of pollution control, are barely aware of environmental law and have never seen an inspector. The Government's Pollution Control Board mainly covers large and medium-sized plants, though small firms account for one-third of India's total manufacturing output.

Despite the fact that larger companies are more closely inspected, some still find ways to evade the law by securing protection from their ministries, if they are state-owned, or paying bribes, if they are privately owned. Sometimes pollution control equipment is installed but not functioning due to power shortages, breakdowns or the switch simply being left off in deliberate evasion of the law. It has been pointed out that in addition to public awareness of the danger posed by industrial waste still being relatively low, the fact that there is only one inspector for every 50 factories also prevents smooth enforcement of the law.⁽¹⁹⁾ An inadequate number of inspectors to enforce the law is a problem that many other countries also face.

If inspectors in charge of enforcing the environmental law are not highly competent, they will be unable to provide enterprises with the appropriate technical assistance they require. For example, the sugar-processing plant covered in a case-study on Mexico had been responsible for various kinds of pollution. These included particle emission resulting from the combustion of bagasse and petrol in the boiler, the drainage into the sewage system of hot water at temperatures of over 80 ^oC as well as solid wastes, and the mixing of water with oil and cleaning agents, such as calcium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, which were eventually drained into the sewage system. The company initiated some environmental protection measures, for example installing a particle separator in a boiler chimney, though it failed to work due to faulty design. Although an environmental audit was carried out on the company through an agreement with the Ministry of Fishing, Environment and Natural Resources, the company found the audit report of little help. Apparently, the report only pointed out the problems that the company had already known about, and did not offer any solutions or options for eliminating or minimizing the problems.⁽²⁰⁾

If a proposed solution is found to be unworkable, there must be alternative solutions which may be less effective than the best solution, but are still preferable to leaving the problem entirely unresolved. Government authorities should therefore be equipped with the adequate technical competence to be able to provide various alternatives for environmental improvement. Since many small and medium-scale enterprises are financially unable to invest heavily in environmental improvements, the authorities should also be in a position to provide low-cost, locally feasible alternatives.

In view of the general public's increasing concern about environmental issues, many large companies are allocating budgetary resources for research and development in the environmental sphere. To take an example, Unilever was reported to have allocated £20 million to its safety and environment programme in 1994 alone. The company's four research laboratories conduct full toxicological and ecotoxicological evaluation of new products before they are put on the market. The company also assesses the biodegradability of new materials used and the impact on sewage treatment facilities of chemicals used in all stages of the production process.⁽²¹⁾ Adequately financed laboratories not only aim to minimize the environmental damage of effluents resulting from company activities but also try to convert the environmental solutions into profitable economic initiatives, such as energy conservation and recycling, and even seek to add value to the substances that were formerly considered to be nothing but waste, as in the case of marketing the waste remaining after oil extraction as natural, organic fertilizer.

The other area of environmental regulation that concerns the FD industries -- in addition to that of industrial effluent -- is the problem of post-consumer packaging waste. The packaging waste from FD products is estimated to represent about 25-30 per cent of total municipal waste and 4 per cent of total solid waste in Europe.⁽²²⁾ The problem is highly visible as municipal landfill sites become saturated with household waste, including FD packaging, the volume of which continues to grow.

After much debate, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, approved in July 1996 a revised waste management strategy which places a higher priority on producer responsibility and reaffirms commitments on prevention and waste recovery. The strategy is not binding, but the recognition of the principle of producer responsibility is considered by some as a significant step forward. However, the new strategy was criticized from both sides. The industry group European Recovery and Recycling Association (ERRA) claimed the waste priorities were too rigid to be applied to the 15 member States and that the idea of producer responsibility would prevent new investment from flowing into the EU. On the other hand, the environmental group Greenpeace criticized the idea on the grounds that it was the same as the principle of "polluter pays" put in different words, and that it would be just as inapplicable in practice as in the earlier formulation.⁽²³⁾

How rigidly this principle will be applied in the future remains to be seen, but it is clear that the FD manufacturers along with those in the packaging chain will be placed under increasing pressure to contribute effectively to the reduction of municipal waste that ends up in landfills. In response to this trend, many companies are working on packaging innovations, including the use of recycled materials and the use of less packaging. Employing mono-material packaging, packaging of detachable multi-layered materials and clear labelling⁽²⁴⁾ as to what kinds of material the packaging is made of would also facilitate the recovery effort.

Some use a deposit system to ensure that consumers contribute to the collection and recycling of packaging waste. The difficulty in this system is setting the appropriate deposit. If it is too low, it is not an effective incentive to ensure that the consumers return with the packaging waste. If it is too high, they might opt for the products for which no deposit is required. Thus, the system is not very effective unless it is applied uniformly to all other substitute products.

FD manufacturers and consumers already contribute to the cost of recovering packaging materials. In Germany, for example, the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) set up to oversee the recycling of packaging waste, was created by 600 business establishments. This was in response to a draconian law which required sellers of packaged goods to be responsible for the collection and recycling of up to 74 per cent of packaging waste. While the cost of collection and recycling is borne by the companies concerned, the cost is in fact added to the price of the products for which consumers pay. However, the system is not entirely without its problems. For example, in order to save money, some companies refuse to participate in the DSD programme, but their packaging materials neverthless end up in the recycling network handled by DSD. Some claim that DSD's quasi-monopoly in a profitable recycling market makes the entire cost too high as smaller companies are pushed out of competition.⁽²⁵⁾ The German system has also been criticized by other EU Member States for setting very high collection targets without ensuring sufficient domestic recycling facilities, which has resulted in large quantities of German packaging waste being exported and European markets being saturated with old paper, glass and plastics.⁽²⁶⁾

Thus, no perfect solution to the problem of packaging waste has yet been found. Each country is tackling the problem in its own way, while many FD companies in conjunction with packaging manufacturers search for better materials in terms of cost and environmental impact.

Employment implications of environmental issues

Various kinds of environmental protection measures have been applied to the FD industries which have had a direct or indirect impact on employment in these industries. By way of example, many people claim that the measure to encourage the use of returnable bottles preserves the employment of those who collect and wash them for reuse. Trade unions in Norway have struggled for years to retain the system of using refillable bottles for beer and soft drinks and imposing a high tax on non-refillable bottles. This measure has kept 99 per cent of the sale of beer and soft drinks in refillable bottles. If such bottles were replaced by non-refillable ones, some estimate that one-third of the employment in the drink industry would be lost.⁽²⁷⁾

Excessive packaging is already prohibited in Canada, although giftwrap packaging is still permitted. However, there is some support for a stricter measure in some provinces whereby giftwrap packaging would also be entirely banned. Some fear that should such a law be adopted, it would have serious consequences for employment in the drink industry.⁽²⁸⁾

Many people are also concerned about the impact on employment of the financial burden that would be imposed on individual enterprises to improve the environment if regulations became more stringent. They maintain that if smaller companies are forced to make investments beyond their financial capacity, they will become less competitive and in today's harsh market situation, this could eventually result in factory closures and collective lay-offs. Even if the situation did not result in plant closures, some think that it would lead to the deterioration of wages and fringe benefits as employers would have to cut costs elsewhere.

On the other hand, many view the employment implications of environmental measures positively. Stricter ordinances concerning the collection and recycling of packaging materials would prompt the creation of many jobs in this area. A number of new posts have also been established in many companies for qualified technicians in charge of monitoring waste water treatment and air emissions. However, new posts of this kind would require advanced technical skills and would not easily be filled by non-skilled workers whose jobs are threatened by new technology in production processes.

While increased environmental management in individual plants will require skilled technicians, modern factories would be likely to install automated, state-of-the-art environmental control devices. To take an example, a few years ago the vegetable oil processing company in Japan installed a sophisticated industrial waste treatment facility consisting of an incinerator, a gas treatment device and a boiler. The automated facility can reduce, among other things, the level of nitrogen oxide and sulphuric oxide to levels more than 50 per cent lower than those set by the local ordinance and recycle the steam and energy generated by its incinerator and boiler. Despite the impressive capacity of this facility, only three persons are required to operate the entire system.⁽²⁹⁾

Although tangible calculations are difficult to make on labour demand and supply as regards environmental measures, the number of new posts created in the area of environmental protection is not likely to be as great as the number of workers having been or about to be replaced by new technology in all spheres of the FD industries. Moreover, those threatened with redundancy are not likely to be technically equipped to be redeployed with ease in environmental control as this new area requires increasingly specialized knowledge in keeping with the technological advancements taking place in all other areas of the FD industries. Therefore, the importance of upgrading workers' skills is once again highlighted.

1.  European Commission: Panorama of EU Industry 1997, Vol. 1 (Brussels, 1997).

2.  UNEP: Industry and environment: Food processing and the environment (Paris), Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan.-Mar. 1995, p. 4.

3.  Environment Department, World Bank: Environmental Assessment Sourcebook, Vol. II, Sectoral Guidelines, World Bank Technical Paper No. 140 (Washington, DC), 1991, p. 17.

4.  UNEP, op. cit., p. 4.

5.  China Environment News (Beijing), No. 71, June 1995, p. 5.

6.  Bureau of Industry Economics: Evaluation of the agri-food strategy: An assessment of recent government assistance to the agri-food industry (Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, June 1996), Report 96/12, p. 48.

7.  Quick Frozen Foods International (Fort Lee, NJ, US), Oct. 1996, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 22, 26 and 31.

8.  Information provided by the Transport and General Workers' Union, United Kingdom.

9.  UNIDO: Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Monitor (Vienna, 1994), Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 58-59.

10.  Pamphlet entitled Kurashi no sekken zukuri by Nisshin Seiyu Co.

11.  Views expressed by many workers' organizations.

12.  UNEP, op. cit., pp. 6-7.

13.  Pamphlet entitled Nisshin Garden Mate.

14.  Neil Buckley: "Wrapped in reduction", in Financial Times (London), 26 July 1995, p. 6.

15.  Jenny Luesby: "Wraps off a new packaging film", in Financial Times (London), 18 Apr. 1996.

16.  World Food Regulation Review (London, BNA International, Inc.), Vol. 6, No. 7, Dec. 1996, p. 11.

17.  Jean-Philippe Barde: "The economic approach to the environment", in The OECD Observer (Paris), No. 158, June-July 1989, p. 13.

18.  Judit Kiss: Technology and employment in the Hungarian food and drink industry (Budapest, Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Mar. 1997), unpublished paper, pp. 48-49.

19.  Stefan Wagstyl: "An Indian tale of two extremes", in Financial Times (London), 30 Mar. 1994.

20.  Anselmo García, Andrés Hernandez and Leonard Mertens: Technology and employment in the Mexican food and drink industry, Sectoral Activities Programme (ILO, Mar. 1997), unpublished paper, pp. 17-18.

21.  J.A. Burns with Marian Garcia: The impact of technical change on employment in the UK food and drink industries, project for the ILO (University of Reading, July 1997), p. 48.

22.  Jacques Chapuis: Packaging: Newest developments in a changing world, transforming the ecological pressure into a business opportunity, a paper presented at Food and Agro Forum, Davos, Switzerland, 5 Feb. 1992; and Packaging Chain Forum: Briefing Paper, Proposed EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste (Brussels, 1992), provided by Foodcan UK.

23.  World Food Regulation Review (London, BNA International, Inc.), Vol. 6, No. 4, Sep. 1996, p. 4.

24.  Chapuis, op. cit., p. 2.

25.  Michael Lindemann: "Pioneer paying too high a price", in Financial Times (London), 19 June 1996, p. 8.

26.  World Food Regulation Review (London, BNA International, Inc.), Special Supplement, Nov. 1995, p. 4.

27.  IUF: Beverages Bulletin: Breweries (Geneva, 1996), No. 1, p. 5; and information provided by the Norwegian Food and Allied Workers' Union (NNN).

28.  Information provided by the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers' Union of Canada (CAW-Canada).

29.  "Sanhaisetsubiga Sogyokaishi", in Kanagawa Shinbun, 14 July 1994.

SECTORS | ACTIVITIES | MEETINGS | PUBLICATIONS