Variety is possible - despite complexity reduction in packaging materials and the return to standardized packaging containers

The packaging world on the Frankfurt Bridges has a clear focus on reusable packaging made of glass and stainless steel. The only plastic provided is polyethylene - although in a wide variety of designs such as hard-shell form, softer packaging or film form, but nevertheless always largely pure polyethylene at its core.

The material reduction in the reusable system means that disposal and cleaning processes can be designed efficiently: and by concentrating on just one plastic, an incineration process tailored to it can be used.

The bridges represent a neigbourhood on a second level in the city, in which the complexity of today's packaging world with its thousands of materials can be reduced for the first time to those packagings that fit into the innovative purchasing, and in sustainable life cycle processes, from production, through transport and use, to disposal.

Once you have created this nucleus and its processes, you can and should add more packaging materials. Sustainability can also be better achieved through portfolio systems than through single-track concentration on just three packaging materials.

At the same time, the diversity of product design in terms of marketing, design or product information does not have to be lost at all.

The standard fountain bottle has proven that a variety of marketing, information and quality appeal can be conveyed with the same vessel

Flexible marketing and branding is also easy with the reusable packaging on the bridges, which many manufacturers of a wide variety of products are expected to use together

The use of a wide variety of plastics, all of which are made from renewable raw materials but are therefore not reusable, already offers companies a wide range of options for customizing the packaging for their products.  Individual branding is also possible for reusable packaging made of sturdy, lightweight glass as well as enameled, thin stainless steel: On the one hand, there is the classic stick-on paper label. When the reusable containers are cleaned, the label is removed and a new one can be applied to the glass or can. In this way, the reusable containers can be used across companies and labeled as needed.

On the standard packaging of the bridge supermarkets the necessary information variety can be provided by appropriate applied codes

In addition to the company's own branding, all packaging is provided with a QR code. The code is stamped into the stainless steel packaging and lasered into the glass packaging and remains intact throughout the life cycle of the reusable container. Producers fill the code with their product informations each time they fill the containers.

Customers can use the code to access further information about the product, such as ingredients, allergens, calorie information or shelf life. To do this, they can either use their cell phones or the scanners located throughout the supermarket. In this way, companies can also provide customers with information that would normally have no place on packaging.

All information that must be directly visible on the product can either be printed on it or applied via classic paper labels, foils and the like.

 Another way to make the packaging palette more "colorful" is to use all the innovative packaging materials made from renewable raw materials, of which more and more are coming onto the market. The only important thing here is that they can be disposed of in the organic waste garbage can without the use of microplastics.

In the bridge supermarkets there is also a wide variety of innovative packaging materials made from regional renewable raw materials or regionally generated plant residues - this provides a further range of manifestations in the packaging appearance

The focus at the Frankfurt Bridges is on resources that are available in sufficient quantities in Europe, in particular plant residues from the agricultural industry. At Brunel University London, student Denny Handley researched packaging made from orange residues: When dried, the material should be as robust and flexible as plastic.

Plastics based on residual materials from the agricultural industry can now be processed in exactly the same way as conventional fossil-based plastics, including forming them with injection molding technology.

Traditional packaging materials are sustainable alternatives - and used innovatively they enrich the diversity of the packaging palette

New packaging concepts are currently being developed all over the world, some of which make use of traditional packaging methods, such as packaging vegetables in banana leaves in Thailand or palm leaves in India.

Wood fiber polymers could cover wide areas of the packaging world - as with all bio-based packaging materials, however, it is also important here that the polymers are produced from waste materials

Nuts, muesli or rice can also be packaged in wood polymer. However, plastic made from wood is only sustainable as long as it is created from residues from other processing operations, rather than trees being grown specifically for it or natural land being converted into agricultural land. In the medium term, however, there should still be enough wood waste to consider wood-fiber polymers as a global option.

Another sustainable plastic alternative: polyhydroxybutyric acid (PHB): a plastic that absorbs CO2 during production - and is also fully biodegradable

One plastic alternative, although not necessarily for the food sector, can be polyhydroxybutyric acid (PHB). PHB is a plastic that can be produced from renewable raw materials, methane or even waste fats.

What is special about PHB is that in its production the conversion of the renewable raw materials into a plastic can be carried out by bacteria: Cyanobacteria, which, like algae, have chlorophyll and can therefore convert CO₂ into sugar via photosynthesis with the help of solar energy. Although they are bacteria, they are also often referred to as blue-green algae.

PHB is therefore a special material: unlike petroleum-based plastics, no CO₂ is released during its extraction/production; on the contrary, CO₂ is bound.

PHB, like polypropylene, is more suitable as a hard plastic substitute, e.g. for garbage cans, trash cans and the like. However, it could also be used for some drugstore products that are packaged in boxes or hard plastic molds.

Since the Frankfurt Bridges will be a showcase for innovations, such materials must also be tested for their applicability to the world of products and packaging on the bridges.