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?
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Make the packaging edible while also not having it be destroyed by what’s inside in the process.
We’re not technologically advanced enough to do that yet, but I feel like this could be a delicious solution.
I like that idea too
Cellulose. Wax paper. Stuff made from seaweed and mushrooms.
Amen to that. Seaweed food packaging. I know of some people trying to get this accepted at big companies eg airlines. Their kids made a whacky video about plastic’s impact on marine life. Behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT4BVDbXS1Y
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.
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.
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.
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.
I expect they’ll move back to earlier packaging materials like glass, metal tins, and waxed paper.
Why do we need the expense of returning glass bottles for washing and reuse, when glass recycling works and is much cheaper?
Washing and reusing is much more environmentally friendly than recycling. It may be more expensive because of the current societal/legal environment but given the right incentives, it doesn’t have to be.
when glass recycling works and is much cheaper?
Glass recycling works but its far more energy intensive. The saying was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and it was in that order for a reason.
Why do we need the expense of returning glass bottles for washing and reuse, when glass recycling works and is much cheaper?
Consider simply the energy use…
Heating up water to high preassure steam to sterilize bottles uses way less energy than it takes to melt glass, keep it at the correct temperature, reform the bottle, letting it cool slowly (to prevent cracking) and steam clean it before filling the new bottle.
If anything we will see a new focus on the “reuse” part of the “reduce, reuse, recyle” process.
There is a reson as to why the verbs in the process are ordered in that way…
The most environmentally friendly action, is to reduce our consumption of materials, if that is not possible, then we should reuse the finnished product for as long as possible, if that is not possible, then we should recycle the materials into a new and better product rather than digging up more materieal.
Do we move to more unpackaged goods and bring our own containers to fill at markets?
I don’t see this happening. Peak covid killed it and it hasn’t bounced back. And covid-19 is not the last time we’ll see a coronavirus reach epidemic levels.
Do we start running two way logistics chains where a more durable glass container is bought and returned to market?
Local dairy companies already do this. I don’t see scaling up to regional, national, and international companies would make financial sense for them unless governments levy some heavy taxes to incentivise it.
I think we’ll see more quick-degrading packaging materials, but again, will probably require some taxes or penalties to incentivise it because it is more costly than the stuff that kills fish or takes centuries to break down.
Do we move to more unpackaged goods and bring our own containers to fill at markets?
This used to seem like a good idea to me too, and from what I’ve since learned, it seems all grocery stores used to operate this way. Sergei on the Ushanka Show YouTube channel said Soviet stores ran that way too until the end of that era.
The problem which becomes clear when you think about it, is imagine if you had to wait in the deli counter line for half of your purchases. The store only has so many employees, and everything you want needs to be measured. That’s a ton of time and labor. Do you want to wait in line for any item not sold in a one size only unit?
Swapping used containers (like we do with 20 lb propane tanks, leave an empty or pay extra, take a full) or compostable wrapping like rice paper or waxed paper seem to be the best shot to save time and material.
Unpacked goods tend to have a lower shelf life so can lead to more wastage. It needs a holistic analysis from farm to table to work out the best trade offs for reducing waste.
PLA (polylactic acid, commonly used for 3D printing) is made from biomass, and is thus sustainably sourced.
Bio-PET is functionally identical to petroleum-based PET, but is readily produced from plants, and is thus sustainably sourced.
I don’t think energy is a particularly scarce commodity. We are utilizing only a tiny fraction of the energy readily available to us. We haven’t even picked the low-hanging fruit of energy production yet.
We gave up on reusing glass bottles in large part because they were not sanitary. Every boomer has stories of finding cigarette butts in their soda and beer. Previous buyers regularly used their empties as ash trays before turning them in for the deposit, and the cleaning process was not nearly as effective as one would hope.
A better cleaning process would be needed to even consider commercial reuse of consumer glass today. Superheated steam, for example, would burn off pretty much any organic material, and machine inspection would be able to identify remaining contaminants and defects.
We gave up on reusing glass bottles in large part because they were not sanitary. Every boomer has stories of finding cigarette butts in their soda and beer.
I live in a county that almost religiously reuses glass bottles and have never heard nor experienced such a story. Seems like someone figured out how to sanitize them.
I would love to see increased standardization in the food industry limiting the possible sizes and shapes of containers (such as glass) making them easier to wash and reuse as-is. On the home front, for example, it’s ridiculous that I have to go out and purchase brand-new Mason jars for canning instead of being able to reuse a store-bought salsa jar. But more importantly on the commercially-processed food front, standardization would make reuse easier by ensuring that containers do not have to return all the way to their original company; that way a jar used by a raspberry jam company in the Pacific Northwest bought by a customer in Florida could go to a local orange marmalade company for reuse rather than having to travel all the way back to the PNW.
I think should also start seeing a lot more compostable products. We’re already getting there somewhat with paper replacing plastic in shipping, but more products need to be explicitly labeled as compostable, and more municipalities need dedicated compost pickup and processing facilities. It’s insane that we’ve created a soil-to-landfill pipeline for nutrients.
