Sustainable Approaches to Packaging
The workshop will introduce the topic of environmental sustainability of plastic and paper-based packaging, focusing on the guidelines, standards, and methods to design and develop more sustainable packaging in Europe. The scope of the presented approaches is to facilitate the recycling of packaging in plastics and paper waste streams or to guarantee the packaging compostability, with a view to circular economy.
The speakers (Mario Mensitieri, PhD and Chiara Ascione, PhD), will further discuss the research projects and case studies related to environmental sustainability developed in Icimendue Srl, a converter company located in Marcianise (CE, Italy), specialized in the production of multilayer flexible packaging for food applications.
Speakers
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Chiara AscioneIcimendue, ItalyChiara Ascione got her Bachelor Degree in Materials Science and Engineering and Master Degree in Materials Engineering at University of Naples Federico II, with a master thesis performed at Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali (CIRA) focused on the design and development of icephobic coatings for aeronautical applications. She took a PhD in Industrial Product and Process Engineering, as part of the Complex Fluid School for PhDs, founded by University of Naples Federico II and Procter&Gamble. The aim of her PhD was the improvement of the barrier properties of PET Bottles, developing nanocomposites based-barrier coatings, easy to apply on large scale.
Before moving to Icimendue, she worked for two years for Istituto di Polimeri, Compositi e Biomateriali (CNR-IPCB) as research fellow, working on functional coatings, nanocomposites thermoregulation and water purification absorbers. Currently, she is Product and Process Technology Manager in Icimendue, and manages the Research and Development activities in Icimendue, working on the design of flexible laminates based on plastic and/or paper to improve the environmental sustainability and facilitate recycling. She manages the scientific projects on medium-long term research, collaborating with Universities and Research Centers on several topics: functional coatings (antimicrobial, gas barrier, UV barrier), novel biopolymers (PHAs, chitosan), systems to improve the recycling stream of plastic and paper. Furthermore, she manages the development projects for Icimendue’s costumers for the realization of new products, designing customized and sustainable solutions and establishing technical parameters and requirements of the innovative flexible laminates. -
Mario MensitieriIcimendue, ItalyMario Mensitieri took a master degree in Chemical Engineering at the School of Engineering University of Naples Federico II with the thesis “Chemo-rheological characterization of epoxy-dicyandiamide based structural adhesives “, supervisors :prof. L. Nicolais, prof. A. Apicella and in the same University a PhD in” Materials’ Technology and Industrial Plants” with the thesis “Viscoelastic properties of biopolymers” ,under the supervision of Prof. L. Nicolais.
He is actually member of the board and technical manager of icimendue srl, a medium size Italian flexible packaging converter, specialized in rotogravure printing, lamination and metallization of plastic films mainly for food applications. Icimendue, with over 110 employees and a turnover of about 38000000 €, is located in Southern Italy near Naples and is a private company owned by Mensitieri family , who runs this kind of business from more than 100 years.
Mario Mensitieri is member of the executive committee of Giflex, the Italian flexible packaging association, and, in behalf of it, he is in charge of the organization of the international scientific congress API, Advances in the Packaging Industry held in Italy every two years with the participation of industrial, academic and institutional research.
He is also author of some publications on international journals , mainly in the field of rheology of biopolymers, surface treatments of polymeric films and flexible packaging sustainability and is responsible for Icimendue of european and national industrial research projects in cooperation with universities and research centers on topics such as biodegradable and compostable flexible packaging, new surface treatments on plastic films, electronic beam applications, safer packaging for food applications, new flexible composite materials.