Hi, what are you looking for?
Egypt Has Opportunity To Gain Green Infrastructure While Hydrogen Hype Persists
How Solar Power Works | Can PV Cells Run Out of Electrons?
Algeria’s Hydrogen Export Hopes Will Be Crushed By Economics
Solar That Works Better In The Shade
CleanTechnica Tested: FlexSolar 200 Watt Briefcase Solar Panel Kit
Egypt Has Opportunity To Gain Green Infrastructure While Hydrogen Hype Persists
Algeria’s Hydrogen Export Hopes Will Be Crushed By Economics
Experts Forecast Wind Power Plant of the Future — Taller, Cheaper
Powering Australia Under New Leadership
Morocco Is A Green Leader & Might Get EU Hydrogen Balance Right
DOE Launches $84 Million Enhanced Geothermal Energy Systems (Video)
Renewable Generation Surpassed Nuclear in the U.S. Electric Power Sector in 2021
Betting A Billion Dollars On Low-Carbon Grid Transformation Tech
Mexico’s Clean Energy Ambitions Realistic With These Renewable Energy Resources
One of the Largest Climate-Tech Workforce Partnerships in US History, + More EV & Battery News
Jeff Dahn & The 100-Year Battery
Battery Policies & Incentives Database Helps U.S. Efforts to Build a Secure Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chain
CleanTechnica Review: Fanttik X8 Air Compressor
Capturing Light From Heat At Record 40% Efficiency, NREL Makes Big Strides In Thermophotovoltaics
Gridspertise — Advanced Digital Solutions For A Smart, Resilient Grid
Betting A Billion Dollars On Low-Carbon Grid Transformation Tech
“Home of the Future” — Solar Power Home with Electric Ford F-150 Lightning Backup Power (Video)
Buzz Solutions Takes Out 50% Of Grid Inspection Image Effort & Duration
Bill Nussey of Freeing Energy Talks About His Chart-Topping New Book on Local Energy
Hyundai Built A Really Cool Efficient Camper Van
Automating The Secret Life Of Buildings: Interview With PassiveLogic CEO Part 1
Solar That Works Better In The Shade
Production F-150 Lightning Has More Power, Capacity, & Range Than Ford Promised
Carbureted V8 From the 1970s Gets 40+ MPG. Did Big Oil Really Rob Us For Decades?
Why Even Fox Loves The Ford F-150 Lightning
DHL Orders Some Volvo Electric Trucks
Coming Soon To A Campground Near You: The Electric RV
Nio Planning A US Factory
6,000 Registrations for Funky Cat, 16 Kia e-Niro Ambulances, “Project Thunderball” — EV News Today
CleanTechnica Tested: FlexSolar 200 Watt Briefcase Solar Panel Kit
CleanTechnica Review: Fanttik X8 Air Compressor
CleanTechnica Review: Hiboy VE1 Pro Electric Scooter
Electric Bike Maintenance: What I’ve Learned In 8 Years (Avoid The Mistakes I’ve Made)
Does the Tesla Full Self Driving Approach Have a See-saw Problem?
Dutch BEV Sales Up 98%, Tailpipe Vehicles Down 19% In April 2022
Tesla FSD Training — Garbage In, Garbage Out
China Electric Car Market — 29% Market Share In April!
Mitsubishi Tops EV Sales In Germany In April — Yes, Mitsubishi!
Fiat 500e Shines in 21% Plugin Share Market of France
CleanTechnica Tested: FlexSolar 200 Watt Briefcase Solar Panel Kit
CleanTechnica Review: Fanttik X8 Air Compressor
CleanTechnica Review: Hiboy VE1 Pro Electric Scooter
Electric Bike Maintenance: What I’ve Learned In 8 Years (Avoid The Mistakes I’ve Made)
Does the Tesla Full Self Driving Approach Have a See-saw Problem?
Tesla Q4 Shareholder Conference Call — Watch & Listen Here
Volkswagen Group — In-Depth Conference Call Highlights Company’s Focus On Transition
Bill McKibben On Unions, Tesla, & Elon Musk — CleanTechnica Interview
How To Watch & Listen To Tesla Q3 Earnings Call — Most Useful Livestream
Tesla Sales & Future of Tesla Discussion with Ride the Lightning, Starman, & EVANNEX
Profits masked as safety concerns make plastic packaging rampant in the food and beverage industry. Unfortunately, there is no one-fits-all solution to sustainable packaging.
Have you ever thought about that clear plastic over your favorite spicy chicken wings or veggie and hummus sandwich? Yes, it’s true that packaging is necessary for food to be delivered in good quality all the way from production to consumption. Disposable packaging is really convenient, too, so it’s become an essential part of most contemporary food and beverage supply chains. Yet environmental problems related to packaging waste have grown exponentially during the last decades. Overpackaging products is rampant. With the carbon intensity of throwaway plastics reaching a zenith, the time is now for Big Food & Beverage to detox from its plastic addiction.
Plastic burdens municipal recycling systems. Short of a plastic ban, what can be done? Meaningful action to reduce Big Food & Beverage’s plastic footprint is imperative. Yet, reducing reliance on plastics within this gargantuan industry has been challenging, mainly due to concerns related to costs, convenience, and consumption safety.
Food and packaging/containers account for almost 45% of the materials thrown into landfills in the US. (China stopped importing US trash in 2018, which has resulted in collecting, recycling, and landfilling plastic waste costs to soar.)
Big Food & Beverage is complicit with Big Oil in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s because petrochemical feedstock naphtha and other oils refined from crude oil are used as feedstocks for petrochemical crackers that produce the basic building blocks for making plastics.
According to the EPA, packaging products are comprised of different plastic resins. Some of these include polyethylene terephthalate (PET) soft drink and water bottles, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) milk and water jugs, film products (including bags and sacks) made of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and other containers and packaging (including clamshells, trays, caps, lids, egg cartons, loose fill, produce baskets, coatings and closures) made up of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and other resins.
Technological advances, coupled with increasing demands by consumers, have led to a drastic increase in plastic production. The urgent need to improve the sustainability of our food systems includes the development of more sustainable food packaging. Striking the balance among food affordability, costs, or convenience pressures alongside developing a green supply chain is no simple task.
To circumvent those obstacles, Big Food & Beverage companies often disseminate public relations filled with false promises about Big Food plastic packaging, according to a report from ClientEarth.
Plastic pollution is at a crisis point. Governments have responded to public concerns by devising rules that seek to tackle packaging waste — single-use plastics in particular — and improve recycling and waste management systems. In March, 2022, 175 countries passed a resolution on the first treaty to directly tackle the 9 billion tons of plastic produced since the plastic age ramped up in the 1950s.
Many of these new norms will become effective in the next years, hopefully creating a worldwide regulative trend that can help promote more sustainable packaging.
A study out of the EU says it all. Moving away from the single-use, throw-away culture through rethinking design, reducing resource use and waste, and supporting reuse and recycling are key to achieving a circular economy for food packaging and to decreasing its environmental impact.
Big Food & Beverage needs to reduce and minimize its environmental impacts. This includes:
New York Governor Kathy Hochul introduced a proposal in her 2023 budget to incentivize producers to reduce waste, “make products that are easier to recycle, and support a circular economy.” The proposal has since been eliminated from the state budget. However, since January, 2022, no covered food service provider or store is allowed to sell, offer for sale, or distribute disposable food service containers that contain expanded polystyrene foam in New York. The authorities encourage the use of reusable, recyclable, and compostable items, source reduction, and items made using recycled content where possible.
Zero plastic packaging supermarkets have become a trend which is on the increase across Europe. France has set the goal to recycle 100% of plastics by 2025 and phase out single-use plastics by 2040. Plastic packaging for nearly all fruit and vegetables has been prohibited there since January, 2022, and under the French packaging law, companies pay less for their recyclable packaging. Plus Italy’s plastic packaging tax is now expected to come into effect in January 2023.
Australia aims to phase out single-use plastics and reach ambitious recycling goals under the 2025 National Packaging Targets. These require that all packaging must be 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable, 70% of plastic packaging is recycled or composted, and 50% of average recycled content is included in the packaging.
One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to cut emissions, energy, and consumption of raw materials is to rethink the way food and drinks are packaged and transported.
Green Seal® is a global nonprofit organization that pioneered the ecolabeling movement with a mission to transform the economy for a healthier, greener world. Its certification is a process that ensures that a product or service meets the rigorous performance, health, and environmental criteria in Green Seal’s environmental leadership standards. More than 100 federal, state, and local purchasing policies specify Green Seal, and more than 33,000 products meet the standards for performance, safety, and health.
Its Restaurant and Food Service Operation standards specific to waste reduction and management include:
Starch-based materials are considered a viable option to plastic packaging. These materials have great potential as biodegradable food packaging solutions that could reduce undesirable environmental pollution. The functional attributes of starch-based biodegradable materials can be expanded or enhanced by adding other biopolymers or additives. However, like most biomaterials, scalability of production and building economies of scale to reduce unitary costs are a challenge. With low margins in food distribution, higher costs would compromise the products’ competitive advantage.
Instead, many of the strategies adopted so far are based on reducing the size and weight of bottles and cans and stepping up efforts to get consumers to recycle containers. But, more promising, reducing the use of cans and bottles altogether has added benefits in reducing shipping emissions and energy use.
An expose in Bloomberg Green outlined some innovative companies that are creating sustainable packaging for Big Food & Beverage.
In 2021, Mars Wrigley and Danimer Scientific announced a new 2-year partnership to develop compostable packaging for Skittles in the US.
These examples are a good, albeit slow start to eliminating Big Food & Beverage’s plastic addiction. Innovations in sustainable packaging materials have the potential to be a part of the solution but only if they are coupled with large-scale efforts to reduce the amount of packaging that companies choose to use.
Carolyn Fortuna (they, them), Ph.D., is a writer, researcher, and educator with a lifelong dedication to ecojustice. Carolyn has won awards from the Anti-Defamation League, The International Literacy Association, and The Leavy Foundation. Carolyn is a small-time investor in Tesla. Please follow Carolyn on Twitter and Facebook.
#1 most loved electric vehicle, solar energy, and battery news & analysis site in the world. Support our work today!
Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.
Carbon capture and upcycling is one of the avenues ArcelorMittal is pursuing to cut fossil fuel out of the steel making picture.
Why are ESG funds suddenly so fragile? Are the environmental, social, and governance goals of investors in these funds being achieved? Or is the...
With luck, Algeria will be left with a lot more renewables, storage, transmission, and electrolyzers for their own hydrogen needs, and little money will...
Stanford University is the recipient of a $1.1 billion endowment to fund a sustainability and climate school. John and Ann Doerr have provided the...
Copyright © 2021 CleanTechnica. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.