Why is so much food packaged in plastic? I understand it’s probably cheaper than using wood or metal or other forms of packaging but it’s just so wasteful. I think people would prefer more “premium” packaging materials as well.
In: Culture
It’s important to remember the flipside to ‘premium packaging’- it almost always weighs more than plastic.
Consider a steak. On a styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic.
How would it be shipped? Paper, probably, but that has hefty environmental concerns as well, not to mention health issues. No one will buy raw chicken wrapped in butcher’s paper from a grocery store. Some of these concerns can be mitigated through better access to locally produced foods, but at this time, most foods are still industrially produced and travel rather long distances.
As for glass and metal, back to weight. We take a step forward in terms of plastic waste, but a step back in terms of shipping – more weight translates directly to increased fuel consumption.
So.
It’s not just cheap, it’s light, and (in some cases) regarded as much better for food storage than some traditional packaging methods.
The real reason is that plastic provides the best shelf life. Modern packaging is very sophisticated in directing moisture and air in or out as required, shielding the food from radiation that would degrade the food, etc. As an example, bananas would never make it to North America green if it were not for the special plastic wrap that is around them in their shipping boxes (which they are removed from as the produce clerk puts them out in the display). While people are often concerned about the apparent wastefulness of plastic packaging around food, and even greater waste is spoiled food thrown into the trash. And a lot of that plastic is recyclable and also made from recycled plastic, with the industry working to increase those stats constantly – it’s not as wasteful as you might think.
Not only is it lighter than metal and more durable than glass, many types of plastic packaging also extend the shelf life of perishable foods, which reduces food waste.
Before modern packaging and refrigeration a lot of food was wasted because it didn’t survive being transported from the farms to cities. Also, people used to get food poisoning more frequently because of food spoilage and poor sanitation.
For instance, a head of lettuce will wilt very quickly after it’s picked. If it’s put in a completely sealed container it won’t wilt but it will start to rot after a couple of days so you need lots of holes for ventilation. Plastic clamshells keep the lettuce at just the right humidity plus they prevent the leaves from being crushed.
Meat packaging is similar. Vacuum sealed plastic bags keep oxygen away from the meat, which keeps it fresh longer and plastic wrapped trays are often filled with nitrogen or carbon dioxide to displace the oxygen for the same reason. Paper wrapping isn’t airtight and wouldn’t work the same way.
From a producer’s perspective, if $50 worth of plastic packaging means an extra $1000 worth of food gets sold instead of rotting in the truck or on the shelf, it’s worth the price.
Right now about 80% of people live in cities and there just isn’t enough room in and near cities to grow enough food for all those people. Food has to be transported from the places that have enough land and water to grow it to the places where people live. And without a good market for their food in the cities, many farmers wouldn’t be able to stay in business. Making transportation more efficient means a lot more of that food gets eaten instead of being thrown away.
Source: Ag major in grad school.
so you rather burn 50kg of fuel to ship your goods into metal packaging (which needs two-way logistics, and does cost more weight and space) instead of 50g of fuel for an airtight plastic foil + 5g to produce the foil itself.
right.
Plastic is cheap, easy to use, is airtight, lightweight. Other materials are inferior for a variety of reasons — there’s a reason they used to be more common in the past but were replaced.
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