When I was a small boy the food was quite different from what we have today: -
milk came in glass bottles with a foil cap
bread either had no packaging, or was wrapped in waxed paper
ice cream came in cardboard cartons
fruit and vegetables were loose and could be packed in paper bags
fresh meat (and our fish & chips!) was put in grease proof paper and wrapped in newsprint
paper sacks or cardboard boxes were used for groceries
There was hardly any plastic to be found. Three types of packaging material predominated: natural fibre (paper & cardboard / hessian), glass & metal.
Roll on more than 40 years and most foods come wrapped in plastics.
During the last decade, the packaging used for some products has been criticised for excessive and unnecessary use of packaging materials. More recently the use of plastics for packaging foods has been under scrutiny for their environmental impacts: -
1. Greenhouse gas emissions where petrochemicals are used as raw
materials for making plastics
The life cycle emissions should be used for comparison of packaging materials rather than limiting it to the carbon dioxide equivalents of just the source material. In many cases the emissions from manufacturing far outweigh the “carbon footprint” of the packaging item itself.
For example work has been done that demonstrates the comparative impacts on global warming from different types of shopping bags: A paper bag would need to be used 3 or 4 times before its emissions fell below that of a lightweight single use plastic shopping bag; a cotton bag would need to be utilised about 150 times to achieve the same.
2. Environmental contamination from used plastic packaging
Plastics have been formulated to be resilient and impervious and it’s these properties that enhance food quality, safety, and shelf life. These characteristics of plastics also make them persistent in the environment: Plastic particles and microplastics pollute soil & water and are increasingly being found within living organisms.
There are several alternatives to petroleum sourced plastics including bioplastics (made from biological sources rather than petroleum) and biodegradable / compostable materials. However, the key with all of these is the ability for the waste packaging to be managed effectively: by way of re-using, recycling, and composting. In New Zealand because of our small population and remote location the infrastructure to deal with plastic packaging waste is poor to non-existent.
When selecting food packaging it’s important to ensure that the food safety / quality needs are satisfied, and then to choose a system that minimises the environmental costs (including the ability to re-use, recycle and dispose of the packaging). If there are non-plastic options what are the impacts of these materials by way of greenhouse gas emissions? Are there practical options to re-use / recycle?
