Food Packaging Recipes Food Cooking International Guide

Food Packaging And All That Goes To Waste

By Julia Taylor-Fernandez

Food packaging is on so many food products these days. You go to the grocery store and almost everything is covered in plastic or in tins. You cannot buy just one grocery item, you have to buy three of the same food product wrapped in plastic food packaging. This is the reason the garbage bin fills up so quickly, with all the food packaging taking up so much space as garbage.

Some of the supermarkets have finally started to shift towards displaying some products without food packaging, especially the fruit and vegetables. So you can pick a number of fruit and place them in a paper bag and bring them home.

I have now ceased buying fruit and vegetables from the grocery store, as I have expanded my garden to include more organic fruit and vegetables. I have also planted miniature fruit trees all around the yard to fulfil the family needs for fruit.

So now if we need some lemons, we go to the lemon tree and pick them fresh off the branch. If we need some tomatoes to make a sauce, then we go and pick the tomatoes from our tomato plants in our garden. No need for a plastic sauce bottle, or plastic bags to carry the tomatoes from the store.

The Food Industry And Food Packaging

The planet is groaning under the weight of landfill garbage sites and something needs to be done. The food industry is a big contributor to waste. Next time you go to the supermarket, lay everything out that you bought when you get home. The amount of food packaging will dismay you, I’m sure.

There needs to be a shift in attitude from the retail outlets, the food manufacturers and the consumer. We all know that the amount of food packaging we use is unnecessary. I bought a cake recently and the picture on the box showed a large cake. The box itself was quite a size.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the cake inside to be of microscopic proportions. It’s a deliberate attempt to mislead and the box was filled with plastic to fill out the box where yummy chocolate cake should have been. There is a serious point here because my purchase is being duplicated thousands of times.

Plastic seems to be the biggest culprit. There is a drive in the UK at the moment for customers to re-use their plastic, carrier bags. This is commendable but there are other food packaging issues to address. So much fruit and vegetables are pre-packed now.

Where there is a choice of buying loose amounts, the stores only put out plastic bags to put the items in. In the past, I would go get my tomatoes, Brussels sprouts etc. and carry them in a paper bag. At least, paper production can be obtained from sustainable forests. Having pre-packed items can be a pain in the neck anyway. Sometimes, I want to buy one pepper but I am forced to buy three in a bag.

Plastic Sauce And Mayo Bottles

Bottles are another offender. I know that plastic sauce and mayo bottles are easier to use than glass ones, from a squeezing out the contents point of view. I also know that it might be possible to recycle the plastic container as well as the glass, but it would be better to not make the plastic in the first place.

There is a debate as to whether to bring in legislation to reduce food packaging or to rely on a voluntary scheme for everyone concerned. Perhaps if the shoppers dumped all the packaging back in the supermarket car park after they’d unwrapped everything, things would change very quickly.

A Big Glass Jar

I look back nostalgically to when I went to my local sweet shop in England and asked for a liquorice stick and a few mints. The shopkeeper would take them out of a big, glass jar and put them in a paper bag for me.

Even good old fish and chips have been affected. Traditionally, fish and chip shops used to wrap your fish supper in newspaper. These days, it comes in plastic sheets. No one knows why but everyone agrees that fish and chips tastes a lot better in newspaper. This is the biggest food packaging crime of all!

No More Plastic Carrier Bags

I am now refusing to use plastic carrier bags when I go grocery shopping and have bought my own shopping bags that I use every time I go grocery shopping. I have heard that whales and dolphins choke on plastic shopping bags and drown, as they cannot clear their throats. I do not want to be responsible for the next whale that drowns, so I now refuse to use plastic bags.

If I have to buy something in plastic wrapping, I always ensure I dispose of it properly and do not let the wrapping fly into the atmosphere and pollute the environment. Every time we take a family trip up the country, we see so much food packaging on the side of the road. Instead of seeing the green natural surroundings, we see rubbish.

Even when we go to the beach, you can see garbage floating on the water. I have seen tyres, plastic packaging and other things that make me refuse to go in the water.

As a family caring for the environment, we have decided to buy only groceries not covered in plastic food packaging.

About the Author:
Julia Taylor-Fernandez has written a number of articles on food, cooking and dieting including General Nutrition, Meal Plans, Salad Dressings, Teapot Cake, Low Carb Cheese Cake, Fruit Flower Baskets, Fresh Fruit, Latte Coffee, Teen Weight Loss, Nutritional Information, Healthy Appetizers, Low Carb Dinners, Health Food Store, Organic Baby Food.
Keep a lookout for more of her articles on this website.

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