I imagine all plastics will be out of the question. I’m wondering about what ways food packaging might become regulated to upcycling in the domestic or even commercial space. Assuming energy remains a $ scarce $ commodity I don’t imagine recycling glass will be super practical as a replacement. Do we move to more unpackaged goods and bring our own containers to fill at markets? Do we start running two way logistics chains where a more durable glass container is bought and returned to market? How do we achieve a lower energy state of normal in packaging goods?
The problem that strikes me reading through this thread, and similar conversations about packaging, is that we can do all we want to reduce packaging and plastics at the consumer end, but there’s a huuuuge amount of packaging all the way through the supply chain. From farming supplies, to ingredient packaging, and the packaging used to transport food products to stores. By focussing solely on the consumer end we’re not addressing the whole issue. It’s like the obsession with bamboo toothbrushes and paper / metal straws. They’re consumerist solutions to a problem caused by consumerism.
Exactly, there is so much industrial waste before a product makes it to you. Yet everyone focuses on the consumer use which makes it inconvenient for the end user and ignores all the “invisible” waste which would require investment from businesses to fix but would have a far larger effect on the environment. Not being able to get a plastic straw or PE film bag doesn’t really improve anything since the alternatives are worse and in many cases far worse for the environment even when reused.
Which is cheaper, switch out manufacturing processes and change the whole industry, or tell the consumer in a commercial that it’s all on them?
Not really the manufacturing processes, but how individual parts are shipped and protected in transit. But yes, that is my complaint, put all the onus on the consumer without actually making any real improvements because the government isn’t mandating it.
Speaking of greenwashing I still remember laughing my ass off when I unwrapped a plastic cover for a paper straw, which made it even funnier is that before then, they would wrap plastic straws in paper wrapping, so why they didn’t just use that is completely beyond me.
I remember cheering sarcastically the first time I saw a paper straw actually in a paper wrapping.
Farming supplies? There is very, very little that we use farming that isn’t stored or transported using reusable containers like trucks, tanks and hopper bins. The most plastic we would use is things like silage tarps or netwrap that get thrown in totes and recycled.
The packaging starts long after it leaves the farm.
Mostly in Florida citrus, the packaging for pesticides is significant. Jugs for liquids, bags for dry powder. And irrigation drip and emitters are all plastic. Oh and cones for new trees from the nursery, zip ties for the protective cover around the stalk of newly planted trees. Flagging tape, um, there’s probably more.
I’d figure at any scale that they’d be using 500L deposit totes for chem and liquid fert. A lot of the rest of it sounds like equipment. A zip tie for a tree that’s going to produce for 15 years isn’t much in the scheme of things. Now when you see that apple individually wrapped in plastic at the store, that’s the sort of thing that should grind your gears.
Citrus does not have the scale of the big crops like corn and wheat, so big deposit totes. I am close to the industry, pesticides are sold by the jug or pack, packed on pallets, poured into sprayers by hand. I’ve known growers that just throw the waste into giant burn piles. Doesn’t matter, citrus is dying…unless we come up with a solution to citrus greening.
Which country are you in? Where I live my food comes from all around the world. Recycling is mostly a Western thing. It doesn’t exist in many of the countries that supply our food. I was just going by the amount of crap I’ve seen in many agricultural areas. Plastic sacks, containers etc.